And Buster Helped!

Been making some mugs lately but haven't felt like doing handles. So I wrapped them and left them for handles another day.

Well, I left them on the shelf right next to my wheel. Someone rather likes to hang out on that shelf. I'll let you guess who.

You'd think he'd be kind enough to sleep in the bed provided or on a different shelf while this one was occupied, but no, he's Buster so he's Boss.  His butt is gonna park where he wants it to park.  Guess what it parked on?

Lovely isn't it?

Yeah, not so much.

Added a handle and will fire it anyway.  Hope somebody enjoys a mug blessed by Busters Butt!

 

What's been going on around here

Hey folks,

I haven't been blogging much because it's been boring stressful stuff.  So here's a big ole post to catch you up on what's been going on around here.

When we last heard from Buster, he was at the vet.  He was a very good boy and took all his medicine.  He got very accustomed to hanging out in the laundry room and now tends to follow us into the house whenever he gets the chance.  He showed up at just the right times for the week we had to give him meds and he healed very nicely.

Then a few days later, this walks in.

That's not rain water folks, that's mud.  Pure mud.  Layers and layers of mud.

That's what the towel looked like after the THIRD time wiping him down.

Even brushing him the next day yeilded a big pile of dirt on the floor.

We think some mud got into his eye because it's been watery and a little crusty.  We've flushed it out with warm water a few times (oh yeah, he loved that) and have been checking him several times a day.  It seems to be pretty much cleared up now.

In other news, the big deal around here has been our electricity.  I had the electrician come by to consult about upgrading the wiring in the pottery studio and to find a way to heat the place.  While he was here, all of the power in the house blinked and we tracked it down to the primary breaker leading to the house.

Two main circuits power our house and one completely blew out.  So for about a week, we were living off extension cords and such so we could get light and computer use in the parts of the house that no longer had power.  And all major appliances had to be shut down so no cooking, no laundry, no fun.

After jackhammering a portion of our carport and digging a 4 foot hole in the ground, our power box has been completely replaced!  Yay!  Our house isn't going to burn down now!

As long as we were at it, we went ahead and upgraded the studio.

I know that picture doesn't show much, but it shows what's missing.  No more cords and power switches hanging from the ceiling!  When I walk in, there's actually a light switch that powers the light!  YES!  Of course, I still automatically reach up when I walk in the door, but I'm sure I'll get over that soon.

And check it out, a properly installed heating unit.  *drool*  It works great.  I can actually work in the middle winter now!  And Buster is thrilled of course.  He has his own private heated little house.

So now that I'm able to work again, I'm trying out a new tool.  Specifically, The Steve Tool.

Loving it!  And it demonstrates my trademark cleanliness as it sits on the counter caked in mud.  Oh well.  I do a lot of other things well, cleaning isn't one of them.

I'm also working on a lot of lidded forms right now for some reason.  So here's a few things I've made with my new tool, in my newly powered studio!

So that's what I've been up to. 

Buster thanks you for stopping by!

The money comes in, the money goes back out

First up, a bit of Buster news.  He's back from the vet and the limp is gone.  We kept him inside for a day because we were afraid he'd run off if we let him out and we wanted to make sure we could medicate him and his limp had healed.  He was really not happy about being locked in a room for a day.  We let him out today and 2 minutes later he came back inside.  And we've let him out again and he's been out most of the day.  But I called for him this evening so I could give him meds and he came running.  He's so awesome.

But the real drama has been the electrics in the house. 

Yesterday we finally got the electrician here to do a consultation about upgrading my pottery studio.  The studio electrics are a luxury in our household.  Because it's not my primary living, it's been low on the priority list.  But we finally got the money together and decided to go for it.

While the electrician was here, we discovered that the electricity for the whole house is in the process of blowing up.  Now before you cry shenanigans, I watched him the entire time he was here.  He didn't even lift a screwdriver or flip any switches.  He did nothing that could have possibly sabatoged things.  We talked, that's all.  He was referring to the main power box to the house and gave it a little tap, and all the electricity in the house blinked.  Now I know the tap didn't do anything, because I tap even harder when I flip the circuit to turn off the power going to the kiln.

So the next two hours were spent kneeling at the box.  He'd touch the breaker and we'd listen to it buzz and a few sparks would fly while the house power blinked.

The wiring in the house is really old and has been jerry rigged numerous times prior to our purchasing the house so I'm not very surprised.  That's why I've been so paranoid about getting an electrician in to check out the studio before even plugging in a space heater.  Well, since the last time we got the electrics inspected, we've added an industrial size treadmill and a big ole freezer to the load.  So by increasing the load so dramatically, we've pretty much blown the circuit.

What's also odd is that there are actually 2 breakers bringing power into the house.  One of them is being pretty reliable while the other is completely burned out.

So now we're in emergency mode.  He patched the power as best he could and we lightened the power load in the house by unplugging the large freezer and all sorts of other things so it would be safe overnight.

The primary electrician came out to check on it today.  We're going to have to get the power company involved, take out permits, have the state inspect the work, blah blah blah.  We're looking at $2,200 just to fix the emergency stuff and probably another $1,500 to upgrade the studio.  As much as it hurts to do so, we're going to go ahead and do both.

So at the moment, half of our house has power and we have extension cords running all over the place so we can have tv, my computer, and a few lights.  The power company says it's going to be about a week before they can get someone out here but the electrician is trying to light a fire under them and speed up the process.  We may be without power completely for a few days.  When they are able to start work, the power company has to shut off power to the house completely and they won't be allowed to turn it back on until the state can come out and do an inspection of the work.  The electrician is doing his best to get everybody streamlined so hopefully it will just be about one work day but we'll see how that goes.

So the bad is that we're looking at spending an unexpected $4k.  So much for our vacation in the spring!  But here's the good things - if the electricity in your house is going to blow up, you really want it to happen when the electrician happens to be standing there watching it happen.  And because he was right there when it happened, he was able to secure things enough to prevent a fire hazard that might have otherwise killed us.  And my parents were very generous with Christmas this year.  They know what grown-up kids want, cash.  So usually this kind of thing would completely wipe us out and put us into debt, but at the moment, we have enough to cover it.  Also good, while we've got this sudden emergency expense, my husband is wonderful and even though he's as frugal as the day is long, he's decided we should also invest in the studio at the same time even though it's a luxury.  So I'll be getting my upgrade.

That's the drama around here.  Oh yeah, it's fun.

Buster at the doctor

We all know Buster is just awesome.  Totally awesome. 

But apparently he's also a bit of scrapper.  As with most outdoor cats, he got himself into a bit of a fight.  Nothing out of the ordinary for a kitty like him.  He gets new scrapes and such quite often.  He's territorial so he's probably the one who starts them.

But this time he got a big ole bite on his paw.  He was limping a little bit a few days ago but it got much worse last night.  We had an appointment for him to see the vet on Monday but suddenly didn't want to wait.  So my awesome vet had me drop him off today so they could fit him in between appointments.

It seems that because the bite was on the paw, there's very little room there for a wound to swell so it hurts quite a bit.  They have him on antibiotics now and are getting him thoroughly vaccinated.  He was already vaccinated for FIV and Kitty Leukimia so those shouldn't be an issue but they're testing just to make sure.

He cried last night when we locked him in the laundry room.  He does not like to be trapped at all.  But I didn't want to risk him getting into another fight with a raccoon or something while he was injured.  And since it would be too easy for him to escape the laundry room (it's our main point of entrance and exit from the house), we decided to leave him at the vet for a few days.  He'll get his meds and we'll try to lock him in the laundry room for a few more days when he gets back, but we'll see how long that lasts.

So yeah, he's fine, but he's not here.  Kinda sucks.

Pics of my feet 01

Without further ado, I hereby bring you the first in a series called "Pics of my feet".

And those were some pics of my feet.

When Pigs Fly

Not a whole lot to say about pottery today.  Unfortunately, I don't have the brain power for much of anything.  That's because my husband I both have.....swine flu.  No, I'm not kidding. 

We're fine.  We're generally healthy people and we aren't in any of the danger groups.  We caught it right away and started meds immediately.  But I still can't believe I had to call in sick due to swine flu.  Tell me, how many employers are actually gonna believe that one?  But it's true.  We're quarantined for at least a few more days.

So until my brain approaches something close to working, here are some pics of Buster to tide you over.

This was a rousing game of "are you coming in or staying out?"

This is why I'm picking cat hair out of all of my clay.  Shortly after this, he took a nap with his butt right up against the freshly made handles.  Oh well, it burns out in the kiln.

I get kisses

and I give kisses