Saturday, January 22, 2011

check list


Email inbox cleaned out - check

First stab at a newsletter done and sent on it's first mass mailing – check. Unfortunately, I made a bone-headed mistake and put the mailing list in the CC address line instead of the BCC address line. Not very professional of me. I won't make that mistake again. Assuming, of course, that I don't get an avalanche of 'remove' requests.

Web site updated – check

Start on first 4” square wax model – check.

Day in the city to get business taken care of and dinner with friends – check.

It all comes at a price though which was not reading any blogs. Boy, get busy for a day or two and the number of posts is overwhelming.

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Still in the city. We brought yard tools as the property here is in dire need of some maintenance. Now if it will just warm up a little bit I'll be able to pry myself away from the heater, the cheap natural gas space heater which is cranked up as high as it will go. We're having some of our coldest weather of the year to date but it's a sunny day and the weather prognosticators are saying it's going to warm up.

Perhaps the poking and prodding I have been doing to the business the last couple of weeks may be doing some good. Turns out our business was not completely dead, just mostly dead. I've already had one response from the newsletter I sent out to the design professional community. It's only an inquiry at this point but that's where jobs start.

We'll be spending several days in the city next week. That's the down side of having work. I have three box forms, some feet and perhaps by next week a lid to grind excess glass off so I'll be spending the better part of a day at my friend's studio working on their flat lap. Then over to another friend's studio to lay out the fiber paper shapes on the kiln shelf to get the first of the three panels for this job cast.

This is my first time to do this type of work, this 'kiln carving'. I think I described the technique here. I'm a bit nervous about it. Didn't charge enough, didn't really know how to charge for it. Hopefully, it won't cost me anything and I will have learned something for the next time I propose something I have no direct experience with. Which I do. I get these ideas, sell them and then have to figure out how to make it work.

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Well, it's warming up nicely out there. The picture is of just one small area in my yard in the city that is covered with these small lilies. What you see now is just the foliage. They started coming up last month and in another month or so these areas will be a sea of small red flowers blanketing the yard.

If I took a long shot of the yard you would see these everywhere with just a few paths through between gates and door. I discouraged grass in the city yard years and years ago and so usually have one wildflower after another instead. These are not actually wildflowers but they turned out to be highly invasive. This yard full of these lilies and next door in my daughter's yard as well started out with one 8” diameter clay pot (I don't know their proper name, the tag in the pot said African Lily). After they bloom and go to seed, the foliage dies down.


I'm always amazed at this early harbinger of spring.


11 comments:

  1. The flower looks like a schizostylis, which is a kind of African lily, growing mainly in the veldt.
    It comes into flower her in very late autumn and in a mild winter lasts until December.

    good luck with your projects.

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  2. Ack! You taunt me with your Spring!!

    :-)

    Personally, I have at least three months more to wait. It's cruel, yes, but when the season changes, it's almost like a drug...

    Pearl

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  3. The thought of spring is wonderful...unfortunately we won't have it here until at least April....

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  4. No hint of spring here! Snow so deep the tallest of my trio of little dogs can't keep the snow off his chin while he takes care of business.........and they tell us another storm system is hraded our way!

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  5. oh, fear not ladies. we still have plenty of cold weather ahead. in fact, the next four weeks we will have our most consistently cold weather. but, in the next two or three weeks, I expect to see the early pear trees blooming. they are always stupid early.

    colenic - I've never been to Maine but did visit New Hampshire once in August. It was already getting down to the 30s at night. I high tailed my butt back down south where it was still high summer.

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  6. I had fun reading how you have to learn a new technique. See, you are always learning, just the way you were intended.

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  7. Boy your landscape sure looks different from mine. A rapid drop in temp today and we are headed for minus zero days... this is when it is no longer fun. I'd like to fire up our kiln right now...

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  8. Beautiful lillies...and it is great to see something green.

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  9. Spring thoughts just mean it's going to get hot, hot, hot here!!

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  10. So happy you got so much done! I bet you feel super good right now, huh? I'm sure those who got your email, will be okay, especially if you send a second message telling the that you are human.

    Your little pre-spring beauty looks so wonderful, here we are still buried in snow and a bit of ice ;-(

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  11. I'm not even going to be jealous of the green - I'll just drink it in & then be happy with my more sane summer temps in a few months :)

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I opened my big mouth, now it's your turn.