Say What?

Rachel mentioned to us a few weeks ago about a desire she has to travel to India this summer and volunteer with a medical team there. I admire so much her ambition to follow her heart and seek out that which is often only found on the road less traveled. She's not normal. Can I say that? Tammy made a brief mention of Rachel's budding plans for India in the video I posted to my previous blog entry which prompted a couple of responses from family and friends. Rob from work commented on how his daughter did much the same thing by traveling to India a few years ago as a college student to study and the life experience that it was for her. He gave me his daughter's contact information to pass along to Rachel. I'm hoping she seeks her out for any and all advice she has to offer. Speaking of Rachel: for all the many times I mention her here, I was surprised to find that when I did a wordle on the content of my blog, Rachel's name barely registered. I don't understa...

I had to take some forced time off my bike this week and given the mild weather we've been enjoying it left me chomping-at-the-bit to be out there. Sharp pain in my right calf had me hobbling around for most of the weekend. When an ultrasound was negative for a blood-clot (my main concern), the radiologist suggested it was possibly a muscle tear deep in the tissue and undetectable. A muscle tear? The only thing I could come up with was when I was hauling my 24 bags of leaves out to the curb Monday night after work. I was trying to hurry the job along so I'd run between each trip. Oddly enough, the pain which began abruptly didn't show up until 36 hours later which had me discounting it as the reason but I can think of no other. Too many times this weekend I was tempted to try and sneak in a short ride to see how it felt but Tammy's admonishment to rest it because I'd only aggravate it won out. She's a telephone triage nurse so I have little choice but to heed...

I had an extended weekend having taken the last two days off from my work-week. I don't have plans for any more vacation days this year and likely won't take any until next June. It's times like this when I catch myself daydreaming about retirement and the ultimate days off, Monday through Sunday. If I had to guess when I may finally pull the plug on my career I'd guess December 2013. That's the tentative plan anyway and it's definitely subject to change. I'm not even sure I've shared this date with Tammy yet. I spent Wednesday being totally lazy. It was a rainy, stormy day and that made it all that much easier to ignore any yard work that may have been taunting me. Tammy and I traded Wordfeud moves with one another throughout the day then spent a couple of hours in the evening, coffees in hand, kicking around Mall of America. I love that place! Speaking of Wordfeud! I've uploaded nearly my entire music library to Google Music . This is an ama...

I mentioned Spotify in a recent post. I'm even more of a believer in this music program now than I was a couple weeks ago. I enjoy getting suggestions from friends which is one of the features of Spotify. Listening to a track that you like and want to share with a someone? Drag the track over their username located on the right side of the player and they'll receive the notification and a link to your suggestion. Just that simple—but they need to be a Spotify user as well. We both struggled to try to blow glass this week. Some sessions are like that so you make the most of learning from your mistakes. There's never a lack of those. I had a three-gather vase take a dive off the punty onto the concrete floor but survive the landing. Together we were able to re-punty and salvage it. I tried to fire-polish out whatever scuff marks it picked up but I'm thinking it may be a candidate for my first attempt at a sandblasted finish to help hide any remaining marks. There's...

We were back in the studio blowing glass on Friday morning. Jackson, Joe, and Kevin were bringing to life works of art on the bench next to ours that we can only dream about at this point. I was excited to see how our pieces from the previous week turned out. Typically I'll remember whatever I place in the annealer as being much nicer than it actually is but not this week. I was pleasantly surprised when we walked back into the cold-shop to have a look at our work and find that I wasn't at all disappointed. Three-gather pieces now have me intrigued more than ever but I couldn't help but wonder if I should stay with the two-gathers we've been working with until I perfect a few more forms? I'll keep wondering because I did some larger pieces again on Friday. Very fun stuff! I boxed up some of our pieces and sent them off to Sweden Saturday morning to a friend of Tammy's and mine that we met last winter while playing WordFeud  together on our phones. English ...

I have a love/hate relationship with the fall season. I love the cooler temps and the great riding and dog-walking days they provide but more and more (as the trees in our yard and our neighbor's yards get larger and larger) I'm hating the leaf raking that goes with it. I got a head-start on our flowers and perennials today by cutting some of them back a little sooner than usual. Our trees are all still green but they will soon change and when they do I'll be owned by them as I try and keep up with their falling leaves. Wish me luck. Tammy took a Bonsai plant class last Sunday at Como Park Conservatory. She had her interest piqued when we were at the State Fair a few weeks ago and observed a  bonsai plant exhibit . I came home from work Sunday night and she couldn't wait to tell me all that she'd learned in her class from how to water and fertilize them to what to look for when trying to achieve the desired shape and what that should be. It was much more involved ...

We finally made it back to Foci last Thursday after more than three weeks away. We did alright on the bench but we could tell that some rust had begun to settle on our limited skills. The studio has their furnace issues behind them and is open for full use again so we should be able to get back to our weekly time-slots. We're both as eager as ever to continue to push ourselves and develop as glassblowers! Tammy's mother spent two days with us this week and was able to watch us blow glass. Our concern with her in the studio with us was that she's so quick to move about so we had to be careful to keep her from getting hurt. It's typically not the 2200 degree glass that burns you but the tools that come in contact with it. An object doesn't begin to show that it's hot until it's over 1000 degrees. Pat Robertson was in the news this week for a remark he made about one spouse leaving another when Alzheimer's descends upon a marriage. I'm not much of a...