I just realized today that I need to take the rest of the year off.

My brother called me this morning to tell me that he had received my other brother’s family gift. I somehow got the boxes’ addresses switched. (Fortunately they both live in Tucson, so they can do a swap!)

Last week I got all excited because a couple of my Keeshond tiles sold immediately when listed on Etsy, so I put colored art glaze on the other 4 tiles I had made, and the glaze was too thick and they were ruined. (I had put the glaze on those first 3 too thin and had to put more on and re-fire them. Then they were fine. So I thought this time I could tell how thick the coat should be… NOT!)

Yesterday I was preparing to contact the owner of the above pictured almost-completed dappled chestnut “Boreas”. I looked up the commission details only to discover that this guy was supposed to be dark flaxen chestnut PINTO!! I can’t believe I totally forgot to do the pinto markings. Now I have to email the owner and see if she wants him non-pinto. If not, I have to start over and also find a buyer for this one.

I was supposed to get another china commission finished this month, and it isn’t even started. In fact I had several goals to complete by the end of this year which didn’t get done. I have to finally admit that I have been so distracted these last couple months! I think I am already over in England in my mind and I’ve been dropping the ball on other more immediate stuff!

So, I have declared a moratorium on accomplishing anything important through Dec 31st, and it might just extend until we get Paul on the plane the 2nd week of January. I have to think hard in the next little while about how much china commission work I should realistically take on before May. I am already feeling pressured with what I have on the books and that is a guaranteed joy-killer when it comes to painting. And I need to finish the two sculptures I have started, to take to England where I can get them molded for ceramics. That is a MUST.

I’m flying to upstate NY tomorrow (maybe, that is… the weather is NOT forecast to be very good in the northeast). I will be forced not do anything but get my head back on straight for the next 4 days which will be a good thing!

I want to thank all 25 people who took the time and effort to enter my little essay contest this month.

I read them and pondered them over the last 2 days, and I decided that I can’t decide. I set myself up with a contest that is entirely too subjective to be judged by me. (Which is why I’ll never be a teacher or a critic or even judge anything anymore. Writing, like art, is so intensely personal, who am I to say someone’s work is good or bad? I know, I’m too soft-hearted and wishy washy, but there it is.)

I really thought all the entries were wonderful, especially how articulate they were within the 50-word stricture! And it really did help me to gain insights into what ceramic horses means to at least a small slice of my customer base. It pretty much mirrors my own reasons for loving both the subject and the media so much, that it’s all I want to create now! So I thank you again for participating.

Back to “not choosing”. I decided to put all the entries into a lottery and let the Boyz decide. I have chosen a lottery in the past this way, with my previous dog Panda, and it is a total hoot. I wrote the names of all 23 entries (sadly I had to eliminate 2 for going over the 50 word limit) onto string tags, tied them to dog biscuits, put them on a plate and let the dogs choose 3 biscuits. Kit chose twice and Kanab chose once. (Kanab is the greedy and impetuous one and he dived in so hard it was all I could do to keep him from not taking 3 biscuits in his mouth at the same time!!) Kit, being ever so much more polite and dignified, waited there to be asked to take a biscuit, so I let him do it twice.

Kit with one of his choices (after I pulled it out of his mouth!)

The “Hadrian” goes to: Vanessa Jones
The “Boreas” Head goes to: Vonda Shilling
The KLF mare and foal medallion goes to: Sharon Sherwood

If the winners would email me, we can discuss what color you’d like your pieces to be glazed next month.

We’re off to upstate NY for Christmas with Paul’s parents this week. Merry Christmas, Happy Holidays and my best wishes to you and yours for a healthy, happy, and prosperous (recession-free I hope!!) New Year.

PS: Paul now has a new start date for his job in the UK: Jan 12th. So I get him for a few more weeks. The Brit Gov’t must have all taken off for the holiday because they haven’t approved his work papers yet. Supposedly any day now…! As soon as that happens we will have to fly to Houston for an interview with the British Embassy! (Houston is the closest US city to us with an embassy.) So we’ll have to drop everything and go do that probably the week after Christmas if the approval comes this week.

Just a quick note to let you know that I’ve listed three Keeshond tiles, in pretty art-glaze colors, to my ETSY shop!

I thought you might like to see how the “Phoenix” and the “Sabiha” turned out. These were supposed to be September commissions so I am VERY glad to finally see them going to their owners!

I realized I’m overdue for photos of the Boyz! Here they are in the snow yesterday. They are SOO happy that winter has finally arrived. They are overjoyed being able to play in the snow. Kit had a birthday in October so now he’s 4, and Kanab will be 3 in January. Kanab has matured and his coat has grown in, and now the two of them look so much alike that when I see them from the top or back, I often can’t tell who’s who:

News from the going-to-England front.
We are in waiting mode for the British Gov. to approve Paul’s work visa. We can’t make any travel plans for him until that happens. It certainly is looking like he won’t be starting work over there on Jan 1st!

I did get the rabies-testing process going with the Boyz. You can’t take dogs into the UK unless they are proven to not have rabies. They got the initial blood test right before Thanksgiving, and they have to wait 6 months after that in order to fly. Just to make it more exciting, I learned that British Airways in Denver has a heat embargo on live cargo from June 1st to Sept 15th! I was really scrambling to get that bood test in November!! In order to get on their direct flight out of Denver that I was counting on, we now will have a window of about 3 days in which to all fly at the end of May. If we had waited even a few days before starting the rabies process, me and the Boyz would have to book on another airline to get to another city like Chicago, then connect to a BA flight without a summer heat restriction. I really really didn’t want to subject them to a plane change—the less opportunities for things to go wrong in the air travel process the better. I will finally relax when I’ve got my ticket and the dogs booked on that BA flight…!

I had to get a Mac laptop so that I can continue to do my health care mag every month while in the UK. We bought a used/refurbished powerbook G4 so that everything is exactly like my current desktop computer. It was brilliant of Paul to think of a used! You’d never know it wasn’t new, and it is actually about 5 times as fast and has more memory than my other one. Fortunately I can plug in my existing mouse and keyboard if I want. But I’m trying to train myself to use just the laptop. I just have to stop hitting the CAPS LOCK…! It’s so cool that thanks to the web my editor in Denver, my publisher in Santa Fe, my printer in Northern CO, and I, will still be able to work together as if I hadn’t moved!

We’re still thinking about options for whether to rent the house or not.
We came to the pretty startling realization that we don’t need to bring much to England with us besides a year’s worth of clothes! (And for me, that’s not much! Fashion-slave I ain’t!) We’re renting a furnished house, and all the small incidentals of life will simply be purchased over there. I won’t bother with things like hair dryer or a TV since they can’t use the same electrical current over there. For some reason I was sure we’d need to fill a cargo crate with our stuff. So it was pretty interesting to really look around rooms and realize that nothing but clothes, my computer stuff, some art tools and the dog’s things need go! I’ll have to do without all my collectibles and books, etc. I am a totally “low-maintenance” woman and easily travel all the time with just a backpack (the older I get the less I care what people think about how I look). This really isn’t all that different!

Don’t forget to participate in my little essay contest. The deadline is next week. There are 16 participants already and all are fun and interesting reads. And some nice prizes up for grabs!