Nov. 17, 2012 Lessons Learned—the hard way, of course.

Well, I started the month out doing great.  As I had finally caught up on some household chores, I decided we needed to go into the BIG city of Houston to buy clay and glazes.
I ordered 200 pounds of clay which comes in four 50-pound boxes.  The two young ladies loaded it into the car—with 100 pounds on each side of the back seat of the Honda.  Easy, right?  Easy turned into a lot of pain—after I moved the clay from the car into my shop.
 
Those four boxes weighing down the shelf contain two of the blocks of clay on the right side.  Note to Self:  Do NOT move the boxes next time, move the clay one 25-pound slug at a time!  I have a hand truck to transport the clay, however, the clay does not help itself from the back seat or floor to the hand truck—my arms and back do it.
The hand truck won’t climb up the 12 inches to the shop porch, over the sill and up on to the wire rack.  Ouch!  My favorite word for about a week.
Next lesson was firing the kiln.  I tried something new by using the “preheat” setting for 20 minutes.  Something was wrong in my figures as 2 hours into the firing, it was at 140 degrees instead of the normal 600 to 700 degrees.  Note to self—stick with what works!
I aborted the firing and started the kiln with the settings I usually use.  It was a perfect firing! 

As I often fire at night, I need the back porch light to illuminate the porch when I go out to check the kiln.  Of course, it went out just about the time I had to fire the kiln!
We bought a new light and then had to figure out how to install it.

It is about 7 feet high which requires a ladder.  Unfortunately, Larry’s not good on ladders these days—and his finger tips lack feeling.  And unfortunately, finger tips are needed to put the wires together as well as strong legs to stand on the ladder for 20 minutes.  So, guess who learned how to change out a light?  Note to self:  Forget what you just learned!  Ignorance is bliss in hiring a handyman!  Because, once we got it all back together, it failed to light.  Up ladder again, reverse process and fix the white wire that came apart—reverse that process and put back together and exit down the ladder.  It does work now!  Don’t breathe hard around our back door!
The next lesson was a good one!  My friend Dianne suggested I enter some of my pottery in the Livingston Art League’s annual show on the 10th.  She also offered to print any photo I thought was exceptional to enter it in the photography division.  She is a talented photographer and has won awards for her beautiful photos.
I wasn’t sure about it, but decided to enter two bowls and my Luckenbach, TX, photo.  She talked me into entering a free-form bowl I made a few years ago.

It won third place against some really, really great photographs!
 
Angel Wings won second place and Brown Eyes Blue won a honorable mention as well as the free-form Hard Road.


Note to self and all my readers:  Take more risks with your artistic side!!  I did not feel my “stuff” was worthy of being entered in an art show and obviously, with four ribbons, it was!  Reach out and explore your creative side—you will be pleasantly surprised.
Life is interesting.  Each stage of our lives brings challenges and rewards—to help blunt the pain of growing ‘more experienced.”
Happy Thanksgiving.  Take a moment this week to start counting all your blessings and, if you are like me, you may run out of time and numbers long before you exhaust your list of blessings.