Friends...

Curiosity = Cat

I was cleaning the kitchen just now and had left the dishwasher door open and bottom drawer out. I heard a *clank* behind me and turned around find Serabi IN the dishwasher, sniffing around.

Nothing is safe with this cat around.

Holidays...

Spent Christmas Eve with Dad's family. Saw my aunt and uncle and ALL my cousins = AWESOMENESS! Very rare. My oldest second cousin is graduating high school this year and is about 4 inches taller than me *beam/boggle*. The youngest is 17 months.

Spent Christmas Day with Mom's family (two aunts and an uncle). Much quieter day, but loved it just as much.

Went down yesterday to be with aunt and uncle and my Alabama cousins. Also saw my recently-returned Nevada cousins (they just moved back to Texas). Spent an hour working on my uncle's computer, played Halo 3 with one of my 2nd cousins, ate more food than I thought humanly possible, played my first-ever game of Trouble (my 5 and 7 year old second cousins taught me), visited and had a blast.

Today I took two angry cats to the vet. Serabi is SO freaking loud - it's actually painful to my ears to be cooped up in a car with her because she caterwauls non-stop. She had a scratch on her eye from one of the other cats and we'd been treating her 3 times a day with eye drops. She got a clean check-up today though, so no more drops! And I took my Sheba in for a check-up and she also got a clean bill of health *cheer*.

Getting ready for the BIG party.

And as for that paper... uhm... well... *cough*
*sigh*

But family and fun! Yay!?

Up-to-date

Let's see... Made several calls to the tv/internet company, waited around yesterday for the plumber to come replace our broken garbage disposal, and today they came back to replace the water heater that died last night. I spent all day today working outside; blowing leaves around the backyard, cleaning out the junk, sorting through things in the garage, cleaning up the driveway, and emptying out the "green room" (like a sun room).

Went bowling tonight with my dad. We both had a lot of fun. I beat him in the first game by 19 pins and he beat me in the second game by 49 pins. Not bad seeing as he hadn't bowled in about 30 years. I would have gone for a tie-breaker but I was exbausted after my cleaning spree.

I have managed to get a little work done on my paper, but not nearly enough.

Need to finish preparing for lunch on Christmas day - at our house. I think I'm heading to my aunt and uncle's on Christmas Eve.

Ugh. Too much effort to keep going on my iPod Touch.
More later.
Happy Holidays and safe travels.

Serabi

I have started researching for my Research Paper. Oofda. I hope to get a sizable chunk of it done before I go home.

Making plans for Christmas dinner (at our house this year) and for the Holiday party my parents are having on the 29th.

Oh... and as promised, a couple of pictures of Serabi. She's hardly ever in one place for very long and when she is, it's because she's sleeping. I'll try to get some better pics and a video before I leave.

Texas... again

Back home for the Holidays.

Nice and cool here. It's 38 degrees and feels like 28. Everyone here is freezing and I'm loving it. There's no snow, but otherwise it's not so bad. Beats last year when it was in the 90's. Ugh!

Brought Sheba home with me and she hasn't left my bedroom since we arrived. She doesn't want anything to do with the other two cats, though she does sniff the dog when he comes in my room. I wonder what she thinks about being drug back and forth between Minnesota and Texas. She does seem less traumatized by flying with me than she was when I "abandoned" her over Thanksgiving.

I'll post some pics (and maybe video) of the new kitty next time I blog. Promise :)
She's.... freaky... wild... cute... lovable... S T R A N G E...
You can follow her down the hall and into a room and when you look in the room she's nowhere to be found. Then you turn around and she's standing right behind you. And you have NO freaking clue how she got there. It's CREEPY... almost like she can teleport. LOL. Seriously.

When she looks straight at you she kind of cocks her head to one side. That combined with her the shape of her face and here eyes... well she looks like a wild animal. But she's super-duper lovable and sweet as can be.

She's always in motion; prowling, exploring, climbing behind things, and rubbing against you, the carpet, the furniture...

Ceramics

I made a total of 57 pieces. I showed my first two bowls and I'm saving some for presents for Mom and Dad - will post pics of them afterwards.

Below are a bunch of pictures of my stuff... I tried to lump them together in a way that makes sense... at least it makes sense to me!

Raku pots. It's a different style of firing.




Plates.


Less-than-gorgeous plates.



Bowls.





Lidded forms.


Pinch pots - hand made by pinching (not wheel thrown).



Cylindrical forms.



Mugs.



Two tiny bowls. People teased me saying I made a Saki bowl and a shot glass. *shrug*


A bottle and pitcher forms.


A four-piece set of bottle/bowls.


Slam pots. Slabs of clay thrown on different surfaces, hollowed out and in one case carved out. The rectangular one I carved out NZ symbols and it was Soda fired.



And my slab constructed, stylized fish hook. It's like my necklace I got in NZ. It was 23.5" high I first assembled it. The final size is just shy of 21".

Christmas Time

Borrowed this from Amber.

1. Wrapping paper or gift bags? I usually use bags, but for Christmas I go Old School = Wrapping paper.
2. Tree--Real or Artificial? When I was growing up we always had a real tree. Then I developed allergies to them - itchy skin. They always made Mom sneeze, so we went artificial.
3. When do you put the Christmas tree up? My little tree in my apt went up Nov. 18th and I put my parents tree up as soon as I go home. This year was the day after Thanksgiving.
4. When do you take the tree down? When my Mom tells me I have to :(
5. Like egg nog? Yuck... no thank you.
6. Do you have a nativity scene? Nope.
7. Favorite gift received as a child? Oh man... That's an impossible question. I remember the feeling when I got my electronic piano/keyboard and a stable for My Little Ponies.
8. Hardest person to buy for? My parents. They want something - they buy it.
9. Easiest person to buy for? Aya.
10. Worst Christmas present? Can't think of any.
11. Mail or email a Christmas Card? In person or mail. Don't send a lot of cards.
12. Favorite Christmas movie? White Christmas.
13. When do you start shopping for Christmas? *cough* I'm a last-minute shopper.
14. Have you ever recycled a Christmas present? No.
15. Favorite food to eat on Christmas? Mom's mashed potatoes.
16. Clear or colored tree lights? Clear.
17. Favorite Christmas Songs? "White Christmas"
18. Travel during Christmas or Stay home? Travel. I live in MN and my family lives in TX. I go to them.
19. Can you name Santa's reindeer? Wow... Yeah I can.
20. Angel or Star on Tree top? Angel.
21. Open presents on Christmas Eve or morning? Christmas Eve.

Last Class

I had my last class today... last class with Dr. Morgan and last class at BSU.

Next semester I'm writing my Research Paper and doing my Written Exam. No classes.

A little annoyed...

Yeah...

So I paid my December rent and left a post-dated check for January's rent that they were going to hold (like they did last year). My rental agency deposited both checks at the same time. This resulted in an overdraft from my credit card (what with me being broke and all). I've been dealing with this for a week and the end result is this: The bank didn't charge me an overdraft fee bc I have overdraft protection. The rental agency couldn't get the check returned bc it didn't "bounce." So I'm left paying interest on this amount for one month - until I have money to pay it off. Not a horrible result, but I'm annoyed non-the-less.

It can all be summed up in one word: Hassle.

Oh for cute!

Chewy!

Found it at Think Geek.com

If only I were say... nine years old again :)

New Family Member

So my parents just called me.
My Mom was giddy.
They had me on speaker phone because they "had some news they wanted to tell me together."

This is extremely rare and made me go... "Uhhhh.... ok."

I thought maybe they'd decided to adopt the Great Pyrenees puppy they've been helping to watch. Some friends of theirs found it and they're trying to turn it over to the GP rescue, but they have to hold it for 30 days. These friends already have two huge dogs, so the GP has been spending it's days in my parent's back yard.

I was wrong.

Dad - "We got a Bengal!"

Me - "You got a WHAT?" - I thought he was joking... that they got another cat, maybe a bigg-ish one.

I was half right...

They went to the place where they got Luxor (who passed away this past summer) and when they walked in the owner said, "I've got your cat in the back." They were like, "Yeah. Right."

She brought out a Bengal Cat and apparently it was love at first sight.

Her name is Sarabi (interestingly... that's the name of Simba's mother in the Lion King) and she weighs about 15 lbs.

She's still in quarantine, so they can't pick her up until tomorrow... I get home Thursday so I'll meet her soon.

A freaking tiger cat...

*boggle*

A Good Visit

Went to see Sharon today. I haven't seen her since May. Been missing her quite a bit. She's had one heck of a week, so I think she enjoyed our visit even more. Hopefully we'll be able to get together again before another 7 months go by!

Have you ever...

Have you ever been walking along when you heard something that made you stop in your tracks, blink, shake your head, stifle a giggle and take a deep breath before moving on?

How about two guys walking out of the Men's Room as one says to the other, "I’ve had them all my life and you know what, they didn’t get any bigger as I got older."

You know you live in Nrthn. MN when...

When they bring in dump trucks to remove the snow from parking lots.

True story: I was looking around at the huge piles of snow (smiling inwardly) and contemplating a post about dump trucks and snow... when a dump truck with snow remnants drove right by me.

Then I listened to my voice mail with my Mom was complaining about 79 degrees today, 80 degrees tomorrow and would I please bring some snow home to them?

Sparks & Fire

Did some more Raku last night and stopped by to see how it turned out this morning... Interesting...

Had to grind down two of my high-fire pieces. First time I've had to do that, but the glazes ran a bit and the pieces stuck to the kiln shelf. When this happens they have to pry it off the shelf - sometimes taking a bit of the shelf with it. Luckily you can grind it off.

I was getting ready to use the grinder and the Professor asked me if I'd used that grinder before and I said, "I've used 'A' grinder before." And he said, "Good."
I (practically) grew up in a locksmith shop... Key machines and grinders are like home to me.

iPod Touch

Trying something new. Got an iPod as a gift, but seeing as I already have one... I traded it in for an iPod Touch. Pretty nifty. Takes a bit longer to type, but will come in handy when I'm at home for Christmas.

Picturessss

The back of our Bowling Shirts:


Today's snow:


My own computer help:

Two Lumps

So THAT'S why Rascal climbed our Christmas tree ten minutes before family was due to arrive, bringing it crashing down onto the newly set table. There were ornaments (only 2 broke) and pine needles everywhere and he went into hiding for the rest of the day.

In the past...

I'm not sure if my references are totally obscure or antiquated... Maybe both.

In the past couple of days I've made references to a "push-me-pull-you" and "No Name City" and the people around me looked at me like I was crazy.

In other news...

I got to do some Raku firing today in Ceramics. Basically you fire your pots in a kiln, slowly raising the temperature and then when they're super hot (glowing red) you remove them from the kiln and put them in a container with some highly flammable material (in this case shredded paper). The special glazes for Raku firing give you some interesting colors and you get a crackled surface. It's a bit dangerous - what with the flames and such... plus it has a 50/50 chance of cracking your pots... and they're not food-safe. Two out of the three pots I did today cracked.