New Big Blue Bowl

This picture doesn't really do it justice but here is my latest glass masterpiece. It's 13" in diameter and quite groovy if I say so myself. Next time you come over you can check it out. The stripe is a mixture of frit (crushed up glass) that I combined to look like stone. Before I spent all the money to buy glass to make a bowl this big I did a test minibowl that turned out super cute too. Here is is so you can compare if you want. The little bowl had more french vanilla glass in the stripe.

Critters

Possums seem to like my house even though I don't remember inviting them in. They have been living in my wall for who knows how long. You can tell I am a real observant homeowner. Well the animal people have caught 10 possums (7 adults and 3 babies)!! And another one died in the wall which they are trying to get out. (that part is fairly gross)

Here's a blurry picture of a baby that was wandering around outside the trap last Saturday. Sadly his mom was IN the trap and the baby was OUTSIDE the trap. The pic is blurry as I shot through a very dirty sliding glass door at sunrise with no flash so I wouldn't scare them.

hummm...

well, in important news today (sarcastic) I refrained from ordering a nursing cover from uttercovers even through it was free (pay S/H of $8) because I don't have a kid and won't be nursing for quite a while if at all. And even though I could have bought it as a gift for someone I figure people only need one cover if any at all and it seems like a fairly personal gift. But I did buy a bunch of Huggies wipes today as they were a good deal.

So, there is the important news of the day. :0)~

new pics up

New pictures from the many photo shoots I did while I was home last month are up on my photo blog. And also a shoot with Josie Bean. http://www.m-photodesign.blogspot.com

Cheese

Last Sunday I went to a cheese sale downtown after a weekend cheese conference. They had some big cheese conference and competition between cheese makers and after the conference they didn't want to ship all the leftover cheese back so they sold it to the public at a discount. A co-worker said they sell it for like $2 a wheel! But that wasn't the case, it was a certain price per pound for whatever cheese they had. Oh, and they wouldn't break the packages or anything so most of it was sold in 5-20 lb blocks or wheels. I picked smaller packages but I still went a little overboard and ended up with 12 lbs! Yikes. Luckily it freezes. Well, atleast some of it will. I ended up with Colby, a colored Cheddar (whatever that is), a sharp cheddar, some fresh mozzarella, some smooth goat cheese, and a mystery cheese. Guess I'll have to have a cheese party at some point. :0)

One Ugly Mother

A few weeks ago while sweeping my back patio (1st time in about a year) a found a huge hole in the wall. Huge being kind of relative. Anyway. So the hole lead to inside the wall between my neighbors and my townhouse. And I figured an animal or two have been living in the hole so a pest control company was called before they closed up the hole. The last thing I want is a dead animal rotting in my wall. So the company set out traps (the no kill kind) and I was warned it was probably possums. The first night caught a baby possum that was fairly cute. I didn't get a picture b/c the animal removal guy got to it before I got up. But Thursday I woke up to hearing something in the trap so I went out to check it out. It was the mother possum and boy was she mad and ugly. This time I got a picture. She reminded me of a rodent of usual size or something from Princess Bride! I am glad she was in the cage and not attached to my leg with those teeth of hers. So, there you have it. My brush with wildlife! Ha.The hole.
the ugly mother! (I did feel a little bad she cut her nose on the trap)
check out that tail. not too pretty.

Kids

I ran across a blog that mentioned a new book called "Raising Free-Range Kids" or something close to that and a story (http://freerangekids.wordpress.com/2008/04/06/why-i-let-my-9-year-old-ride-the-subway-alone/) of the author letting her 9 year old ride the NYC Subway alone to get home. I found peoples reaction to it interesting. At first I thought the kid was too young to be on the subway by himself but thinking about it it doesn't seem that strange. I remember being 9 and babysitting my sister and maybe my brother too while my parents were out for a few hours. I could ride my bike all over the neighborhood by 8. By 5 and 6 my little brother and sister were stealing change off the top of my dresser and riding their bikes to 7-11 to buy slurpees and candy by themselves. I think kids should be encouraged to roam and play and explore. I do feel like we have as a society have "protected" kids so much they can barely breathe sometimes. I am all about kid safety and all but some of it seems unnessessary.

So while talking about kids I hung out with Liz and the Brown kids last night after work. It was movie night and they let me pick out the movie. I chose A Little Princess b/c its one of my favorites. It was a different version than I'd seen before but it was good and Liz made us special popcorn (popcorn with chocolate chips) which was fun too.