And I Thought Sudoku was Addicting

I am in the habit of doing sudoku each morning and now I have discovered this site: http://www.web-games-online.com/memory/index.php

My memory needs all the help it can get! Oh yes, this is what I am supposed to be doing!

Remembering Thailand

It is cold in the old work area today here in snowy Seagrove, NC! Hard to leave the proximity of the heater. I was loooking through some old photos and decided to post some of our trip to Thailand for Wes's son, Wes's wedding.

This is us meeting Amy's parents in their home city of Loei.

The morning ceremony with monks at Amys' parents home.




















Amy's aunt runs a restaurant on her "veranda". She can cook! What great lunches we ate there.
























Shopping and touring......Amy and I were going through mortars and pestles. $1 for a set. I love mine and use it often! The other two photos are from Wat Kaek, a sculpture park in Nong Khai province, at the Mekong River across from Laos (where we had some great Vietnamese food). This place was amazing . Created 50 years ago by a priest-shaman who integrated Hinduism and Buddhism. There are enormous statues throughout the park. I think we took over 60 photos just there!

Well better get to work. I wish I had a bowl of mangosteens. Amy would buy big bags of them on the road side. Great fruits in Thailand (except IMHO durian).

Let it snow!!!

What a day!







Obama's inauguration and all this snow. I drove over to Robbins (8 miles) to pick up a prescription this morning. There was almost 8" of snow on the ground over there, amazing we have about 3-4" here!

It was great fun taking Bacchus out for his first snow experience. he loved chasing snowballs and even retrieved them!

Cool Stuff I See When Rusty and I Walk the Dog!

Bacchus, Rusty and I walk around our water hyacinth infested pond a few times each day. I'm
looking forward to 11 degrees and below freezing the next couple of days because I hope it will do some major damage to this plant. Unfortunately it will probably also kill all the frog eggs that seem to be all around the pond.

The photo below is ice on the pond surface . I might try to make an image for photoetching silver with that one. Pretty cool!
We have 10 rain barrels to collect water. 9 had ice on them and 1 didn't. I took the photo because I thought that was cool. Then I looked at the photo and saw the reflection, way cooler!

Trenches for the asparagus beds! And more ice!













Well it isn't too cold out this morning, it was 41 at 9 (forecasted high of 38) but supposed to start dropping! It could be worse, at my parents home it is 10 now wih a low of -5 tonight. Now that is cold!!!

Owen/Owens Family Show

I have been updating the NCPC web site with new photos and info. Please take time to stop by and visit the new show that is up now, the card photos are pots that Vernon's (my brother in law) grandfather made. It should be a great show, and the reception is on Sat, 16th.

Owen/Owens: The Family Business:

175 Years of Pottery by the Owen/Owens Families

opens at the NCPC on January 14th, 2009 with 100 pieces of pottery

and many family photos and bios. The exhibit will run thru April 3rd. We

will host an artists reception on January 17th from 2-4 pm. The reception

is free and open to the public and family members plan to bring their

instruments and play bluegrass and old time Appalachian music.

Get the latest news satire and funny videos at 236.com.

Learning Something New!

I am excited! I have signed up for a handbuilding class with Allison McGowan next month. Since I bought my slab roller I've wanted to try some pottery pieces and not just use it for my jewelry ideas (which I haven't even tried yet). I've made some boxes, of course I'm afraid to glaze them, because I don't want to ruin them! So that is a new area of research for me!

My stones use the Jugtown glazes in varying combinations, but since these new pieces will be something different I want to do my own glazes for them. I would also like to start adding metal elements to them. I enjoy the teapots that Pam and I do in collaboration and have something completely different in mind for my new projects. Of course I need to get the supplies necessary to create all these new things.

Shopping, something I always enjoy!! Tonight I want to play around with some rubber mold making stuff I bought a while ago. Then one day soon jewelry making will resume!

A Barley Day

I needed to make a dish for a birthday lunch at Jugtown today. We had brown rice with spicy beans last night and I had a bunch of rice leftover. It is raining hard, and so looks cold and dreary, although at 6am it was 60 out! So I decided to make a casserole with barley cooked with veggies and broth, brown rice, chiles, feta, etc.

Then I thought about dinner and since I had a whole package of mushrooms and a lot of barley I decided to really make it a barely day and made a pot of mushroom barley soup. It still needs something. I'm going to add brandy near the end, so that might just do it. I guess I may be sick of barley and brown rice by tomorrow morning, but somehow I doubt it! And barley casserole makes a good breakfast, even before it is finished. That should fortify me for another day of sitting in front of Quick Books bringing things up to date. Between the construction project and the work on the Celebration, not much accounting got done between August and now.






Well maybe one day it will snow here, but not today! Time to go walk Bacchus in the rain!

Oh, I almost forgot this. Our orange tree is in full blossom. It is a naval orange that Wes has grown for a long time. It smells like jasmine and is in the sunroom attached to our bedroom so we can leave the door open so we can smell it. Last year we had 17 oranges, and they were sweet and juicy. Here is a picture of ababy orange!

Lazy Days, Resolutions, etc

Resolutions

get more exercise, lose weight, get more sleep, be more organized, develop new items for the 2009 line, etc

We came back from a white Christmas in NH and didn't slow down until yesterday. Today when I looked in the frig we have plenty of leftovers from entertaining: Sousi with ajika Georgian (as in Russia) Stew with a great basil-cilantro salsa), chicken piccata, baby back ribs and pasta. Where are the greens, the veggies, the tofu? Time to go shopping! So far not much on the resolution list has been started. Wes, Rusty, Bacchus and I did do a walk around the property. It is funny watching the cat follow the dog with us behind them. I did play with my new slab roller and start my experimental boxes and I did start some more faces for the funky necklaces. We did laze around and play scrabble (brain exercising) on my new deluxe scrabble board. Maybe on Monday when we both go back to work we will be more disciplined. It is great to have lazy days, although 2008 was a big event filled year for us, (hard to believe that 7 months ago the back porch was being torn off and the kitchen gutted) I hope 2009 will have great events but maybe be just a little bit slower so we can have more lazy days like today! Or days for gardening and landscaping.

We ordered a bunch of asparagus plants and will be putting in an asparagus bed in the back of the garden. Due to the construction this past summer our garden was very neglected, but this year will be different. Susan and I want to do some plant exchanges and if you have some that you'd like to get in on it with us, let me know!

I hope 2009 brings everything you hope for.