holiday stuff and a totally unrelated selfie

I should be in the kitchen trying to whip something up for the garden club christmas party pot luck lunch buffet today. I should be jumping in the car and running down to the square to find a little gift for the chinese gift exchange they will have. But I'm not. This thing always sneaks up on me because I just don't do christmas. Don't think about it, don't plan for it. I didn't even go last year or the year before. The only reason I'm going today is because my sister is going. Besides, I've been busy this week working on a master bath window, nothing complex, just reproducing the tile pattern in a border.

That was yesterday morning and I did decide, after all, to run down to the square and check out a couple of the shops. First shop, strike one. Second idea was a nice bar of handmade soap with garden fragrances but the only ones they had at the second shop I went to were intended mostly for men and really smelled terrible so strike 2. Third shop though is a great antique/junk shop and she has chandelier crystals so I got one that had three small octagonal crystals and a large pendant shaped one all hooked together. I thought it would be nice hanging in a window or out on a patio.

So the buffet had some interesting things as these things usually do. My favorite was a casserole of sausage, potatoes, and sauerkraut and some kind of sauce. Doesn't sound that good but it was. And there was a chicken and dumpling casserole that was good. Lots of other predictable stuff...stuffed mushrooms, meatballs, salads, some corn thing I didn't try. I didn't get in line soon enough and so missed the deviled eggs though I did get some of a lot of different things. My sister and I were sitting next to each other to eat and I picked up something and took a bite and put it back down and said, 'well, that was terrible'. Later I asked her which of the foods she had brought. 'The one you didn't like', she says. Of course it would be that one.

Anyway, when my number came up for the gift exchange and it was time for me to choose, I chose a bamboo wind chime that had already been opened by someone, snatched by someone else, and then snatched by me but I got to keep it because we put a limit on how many times an opened gift could be snatched. It was fun, fun to see what items were passed around and which ones weren't. It seemed like one woman opened at least half the gifts since whatever she currently had was usually snatched by someone else. Well, probably not half but at least a third. At one point she quipped did we all just want her to go ahead and open all the rest of them?

We had a good time at the open house last weekend, visiting with friends we only see once or twice a year now since we moved out of the city. I don't think we had nearly as many people come by this year as last but we sold more than last year. We sold four pieces, two of the new ones and two older ones plus sold one of the new ones via FB before the weekend ever got here. Now I have to get the waxes ready for the three limited edition series of small bowls that I promised a new gallery in Florida for their show coming up in March in which we are participating. I'll send the framed lizard and bee sculptures as well. I have to get these done before we start casting the last of the Botanicas.

And speaking of the last of the Botanicas, I think I'm going to do one more but this one will be large, 18” square. It won't be nearly as thick though because it would be tremendously heavy.

Oh, yeah. And the selfie (just 2 more to go).