have more fun

Go to http://cakewrecks.blogspot.com/search?updated-max=2009-12-07T09%3A30%3A00-05%3A00&max-results=5 scroll down until you see the lovely cherry blossom cake, then look at what PROFESSIONAL cake decorators turned out after seeing the same photo.

This is the first year I really don’t have the money for gifts. And my arms have not allowed me to make much pottery, either. Fortunately, my family understands. My daughter’s too consumed with recovering from the fire and moving back into her house to think about presents and my other daughter doesn’t require do-dads. My SO is another story, though his upcoming surgery will put a dent in what he can do. Maybe I’m nuts but I’m looking forward to a virtually giftless Christmas. The granbeanie will get plenty and we’ll celebrate for sure, but the shopping is out this year.

That’s fun by itself but the prospect of spending Thanksgiving with all my nieces and nephew, my new grandniece, my AZ daughter and the rest of my family is just beyond fun. I am profoundly grateful for them all.

But this week I work just Mon. and Tues. and am off for the holiday until next Monday. So I’m looking forward to seeing my nieces and nephew, meeting my grandniece, see my daughter (even if it’s only for two days) and cooking and eating good stuff. And then we’ll have our marathon of board games with the granbeanie old enough to participate for the first time. Fun.

In two days my West coast daughter will be here. My son-in-law is out of town on business so it will just be us girls, so that will be fun. While she’s here I don’t want to worry about BJ or money or my health, I just want to enjoy having all my girls around me.

Did my first glaze firing and liked the results. Next time I will cool more slowly for better matts but I got a few results that really are stunning. Also, I picked up a student who wants “to learn everything” and so now I have to clean up my studio (yet again). I swear, my studio is a case study in chaos theory.

I needed it, too, after the funeral. Played in my studio, fired my kiln. Good, solid fun.

I want to see a movie this month.

I want to play with some puppies somewhere.

I want to have fun when my other daughter comes to town later this month. Maybe go to the beach for a night.

When my in-town daughter and I go to watch the new Harry Potter together. But, alas, she is hiking in Yellowstone right about now, in the middle of a fab-o vacation. She’ll probably catch the movie with her sweetie on the way home. Still, she’s the one responsible for getting us into this series. We were all driving from my house down to Florida to see my Mom and brother, years ago, after the first book came out. She just happened to have the book on tape with her and wanted to listen to it in the car. Her sister and I sighed tolerant sighs but allowed it. It was exactly long enough to do the trip and each time we stopped we would talk over the story and hurry back to see what happened next. It is a fond memory for me.

Lunch with a friend from school. Talked a little shop, caught up on family things, bemoaned the economy. She’s care-taking her mom and knows I understand. I’m having a busy week.

She has standard things she likes to do when here. She plays with dominoes. We have a reading lesson. We have snacks. We play with “babies.” Add to that her hunt for the “white hairs” on my head! She loves playing with other people’s hair and one day while playing with mine she said, “Granbean! You have a white hair!” I told her all my hair would be white if I didn’t color it. Her eyes got wide and she asked, “You paint your hair Granbean?” I told her I used special hair paint but it didn’t get all the white hair so she could look to see if she could find more. Now she triumphantly announces when she finds one. She’s such a little laugh bucket!