Last weekend we took the dogs down to Green Turtle pond. Our path took us through the woods. The dogs love being off lead.

They’ve been trained to not stray too far from us by handing out treats when they return to us every once in a while. Here are Hailey and Alex doing just that.

This leaf has obviously been stuck on this tree’s trunk for quite some time as the fungus has grown over it and imprisoned it.

A few more fungi along the forest path.

Of course the walk is fun, but the real reason to walk all the way down to the pond of course, is the water. It’s a race!

And one dog is out in front! Can you guess which one?

Aaahhhh ... water, Bella says!

The other dogs are content to just have a good long drink of the cool water at the pond’s edge but not Bella. She has to go wading at least three or four times, sticking her head under the water to take big gulps.

And just one more splash in a mud puddle before leaving the pond. Gosh this is fun!

And what fun is a walk if you can’t collect leaves in your tail and skirts?

Come on mom and dad,  hurry up ... I’m waiting!

Every time I take this walk I never fail to be captivated by the captive branches.

This braided one I am going to use as inspiration for a pottery piece.

All in all it’s about a mile and a half down to the pond and we all love the ability to walk right out our front door, down our street and into the woods. Lucky dogs; lucky us!

I have to say I was not totally happy with the unlovely apple. The glazes did not blend like I had thought they would and I needed to touch up the edges with acrylic paint where colors collided. I glazed it in a hurry because we didn’t have much time to complete two projects in one session. (More griping about that a little further on.) So, the apple is what it is. Bless Rick’s heart: he said he would take it to work and put it on his desk. All I could think of was his gesture was that of a proud parent of what his child had done in art class! It’s sweet though. I think I’ll let him take it out of my sight!

I finished the third and final coat of glaze on the pot I showed you last week. Hopefully I can pick that up next week. I am anxious to see what the glaze looks like after firing. Another unlovely object? We shall see. I have hopes for that one.

We worked on the third project again (finally) of the extruded pots. The clay was still moist but not pliable enough to do the impression that I had wanted to do. So my original idea was not going to work. Last week at Michael’s I bought myself some more or less “real” clay instead of Play-Doh and an impression wheel with four interchangeable discs. I decided to use one of the discs since my first idea was out. I also wanted to still incorporate the “button” but it wasn’t working. We finally put our heads together and Kathy gathered some plant matter from her yard to impress the button with since I had chosen a leafy design.

A close-up of the “button.”

The back.

I’m still not quite sure if the addition of the button is really me, but since everyone else approved I kept it on. The next time I see the piece it will have been fired (in 2 weeks maybe?) and ready for glazing.

Now here comes the griping part. I signed up for and paid for 4 lessons, which technically ended this week. We started three projects and finished two of those. When I asked this week what happens next since we didn’t finish our projects, Kathy told me that I would now have to pay another $35 to glaze my pot the next time I come. Huh? To me this just doesn’t seem right somehow. She started us on these projects and in my head she should let us finish them out without charging more. I’m kind of disgusted about it. Am I wrong to feel this way?

I was going to continue taking classes from her for another round of classes, but now I am thinking not. She is not really a very good teacher. True, she introduced me to and showed me several different and interesting styles of pottery, but she was not helpful at all in the glazing aspect of things. I had lots of questions that she simply did not, or could not, answer. I need a teacher. Someone who is going to tell me what is going to work or not work. Being a beginner and not having someone give you some kind of direction is daunting and doesn’t lead to a good outcome of the final product.

I am going back to finish what I started and pay out more bucks, but I am going to be looking for a different style of learning after the holidays.

By the way, I am thinking of some kind of greenish glaze for the above yet unfinished project. Either that or an earthy brown.

I’ll keep you posted how it all turns out.

Saturday we bought ourselves an early Christmas gift: an XBOX 360 with Kinect. Have you seen them? When we bought our Wii game system a few years back we thought it was brilliant technology. And it was back then. Now instead of either having to stand on a balance board or hold a wireless remote, all we have to do to interact with certain games is hold up our hand to sign in to start, then just move! Two cameras track your body’s movements. You move, your avatar on screen duplicates your move. Rick noticed that even when I started rolling up my sleeves my on-screen persona was doing the same thing. Almost creepy!

We just went to look at Best Buy on Saturday. Honestly we did. We walked in to the video section and the salesman asked what we were looking for. We told him and he looked at us and said “Well first tell me what kind of games the kids you’re buying this for like to play because that might make a difference in the system you should be looking at.” Hmmm, what to say? I looked over at Rick and said “Honey, what kind of games do we like to play?” At this point the salesman broke out in a grin, slapped me on the arm and said something like “way to go!” or “good for you!” Surely we can’t be the only adults who like to do this sort of thing??

They had a huge flat screen TV set up so that people could try out the amazing Kinect technology for themselves. It was set up for bowling. I tried it out. I walked up to the screen and held my arm out to the side to “pick up the ball.” I lined myself up, took a few steps and “threw” the ball. I got a strike!

Of course we bought one. Plus the sports game and the workout game. We discussed whether or not to wrap it up and put it under the Christmas tree or to set it up and play now. When we got home I was tending to dogs but Rick was no where to be seen. There he was in the living room putting the XBOX stuff together. “I thought we were going to wait until Christmas?” I asked him. “Well, I just wanted to see if we needed any cables or anything. Plus when Carolyn comes for Thanksgiving we can all play,” he replied.

Uh huh.

We played a few games and got used to how it works and overall found it very responsive. I somehow beat Rick at bowling and he beat me in our game against each other of table tennis. There are a few things that could use a little better user interface, like setting up your avatar, but overall it performs beautifully.  And it knows who we are: it knows that Rick is Rick when he stands in front of it and it knows it’s me when we switch places. Pretty amazing!

We are both looking forward to doing the yoga on the workout game. The Wii had yoga but you really didn’t know if you were doing the position correctly or not since all it really took into consideration was balance. This one should correct us if we are doing it wrong. Plus, the games are fun and it gets us off the couch and moving!

I guess we are really just kids at heart.

Today we held our breath as we came in to the studio and asked Kathy how the firing of our two pieces had gone. She shook her head and frowned. “I’m afraid we didn’t have a very successful firing.” Uh oh. Visions of shards of pottery flashed through my head. “Let me show you. I can’t remember which pieces were yours.” Monica and I saw our bowls on the table—mostly intact. Whew! Mine had two pieces broken out of it on opposite sides and Monica’s did too. Kathy’s bowl, on the other hand, was in bits and pieces and unsalvageable. Too bad! We sorted through the shards looking for our missing pieces and found most of them.

One of the “holes” I decided to leave because it looked pretty artistic and kind of like a seashell which is where I was kind of going with the bowl: an earthy beach-y look. The other side I glued three pieces back in which still left three spaces where other pieces had broken off, but it looked three-dimensional and not too bad so I went with it. Here you can see the “artistic” hole.

And here is a different view of the bowl.

And who could forget my apple?

Today I managed to get two coats of glaze on the bowl, both inside and out but I still have to apply a third coat which I didn’t have time to do. Too bad, otherwise it could have been fired this week. Now I will have to wait one more week to see results!

I glazed the apple and used three different shades of red applied rather randomly. I have no idea how it’s going to come out but I’ll find out next week! I’m not too confident it will look good!

Here is the bowl after glazing. Keep in mind that this will not be the final color. The outside glaze is not food friendly and has lots of sandy bits in it that will explode and melt on firing. Since I don’t have a clue what I am going to do with it afterwards, I kept it food friendly just in case and used a different glaze inside. In the first photo you can see the side where I glued three pieces back in. You can see two of the three holes I left near the bottom. See them?

We ran out of time so I didn’t get to work on my other project at all, so next week I’ll finish it up so it can be fired along with the hand-built bowl once the other coats of glaze go on. I can’t wait to see what I get!

The great cactus show chez Robinson is about to unfold. Right now they think they are Thanksgiving cacti. Next month they will probably think they are Christmas cacti. Salmon, white, magenta. They are all loaded with blooms.

No matter. They are gorgeous. They are blooming. They are happy. Who cares what kind of cacti they really think they are?

Let the show begin!