The Week is Progressing

I hope all of you had a good Bastille Day.  I almost ordered French Silk pie last night in honor of France, but broke down and got Coconut Creame instead.  "Despicable Me" was absolutely delightful - we laughed throughout the movie and the littlest girl's eyes could rival Puss 'n Boots' eyes in Shrek.  It is most certainly a movie that I will buy on DVD when it becomes available.  One thing that appealed to the adults in the audience - Gru (the main villian) goes to the bank for funding for his current evil ploy.  The bank is the "Bank of Evil, Formerly Known as Lehmann Brothers".  All of the adults in the audience were laughing over that one.  If you have a chance to see this one, do so.  It's not just a kid's movie, it is a movie that you can take a kid to but still enjoy as an adult. 

"Despicable Me" is a definite winner.  Go and see this movie!

Le Tour de France hits the flats today transitioning to the Pyrenees by the weekend.  It's a day for the sprinters, and although there may not be much change in the overall standings, it will still be a fun stage to watch.  The fireworks of mountains and men on bikes will reconvene on Sunday.

It's very orange out of the packet, but clean and easy to
work with.  I like the product so far.

The saga of my charms for the PMC Conference continues, but at least I'm getting somewhere.  I was finally able to make my PPP of my sigil by purchasing a new light fixture from Home Depot yesterday morning.  Putting the new bulb into the new fixture resulted in success.  I made a positive and a negative image, chose which one to use and started work with my Art Clay Copper.  I added too much oil to my first 50 grams, so opened another packet and started working without adding anything.  It is tough to start working with - but once I got it rolled out once, it was an absolute dream to use.  I made more than 40 charms and put them into the dehydrator.  I know that some of these won't survive being vetted after sanding and refining, I'm hoping that I will get between 30-35 usable charms out of the batch.  After I refine them I'll start firing them.  With the heat we've been having, I'll run the kiln overnight to keep any heat overage under control.  And since I do want to enamel them, I'll charcoal fire them.  This should be fun!  Now I just need time and that's going to be hard with my having to work all next week while Chickie is on vacation. 

I'm Doomed!

It's a little dramatic, but it's also the best description of the past 24 hours of relatively fruitless activity.  I need to make charms to take with me to the PMC Conference in two weeks.  I plan to make these from Art Clay Copper and enamel them.  I'll have to do the enameling during my evenings and/or Sundays, because after today I will have no more studio days until after I return.  My original plan was to make a PPP (that's photo-polymer plate) of my egret sigil - the symbol that I use to sign each piece and drawing that I make, and bas-taille enamel it.  I purchased a system for PPP from my friend and former customer Gwen last year at Metal Clay World, but I hadn't used it yet.  I took a refresher class from her last month at Bead & Button, so I was very confident about what I wanted to do and the process to do it.  Then fate stepped in. 

Despicable Me - I'm King of the World?

I got the image ready to expose without any problem - both a positive and negative image.  I assembled the light fixture - I certainly knew how to do this, I had helped Gwen assemble the ones that she needed for her class just a month before, and I plugged it in.  So far, so good.  I turned on the light - no problems here, until after 30 seconds when the center of the light bulb went dead, leaving a non-functional fixture.  So...I needed a new bulb.  Now, this is not just any bulb.  It is a specialty bulb that even Gwen finds difficult to locate.  But, I did find a place with a bulb for me, drove out there, purchased it, put it into my car, and worked for the day.  Last night, I put the new bulb into the light, and....nothing.    Gwen is sending me a new fixture and bulb, and I need to shift gears and figure out what to do for my charms now....

Andy Schleck in Yellow - What a wonderful sight!  Hope he does well today on
Le Tour de France.

But tonight I get to play a bit and I'm going to watch "Despicable Me" with Chickie and Claire.  I'm really looking forward to this.  We decided to watch the normal show - not the 3D one.  Next week I'm going to see "Inception" with Meghan and Chickie.  That one we will see in 3D - that one deserves the extra money.  I hope your day will go a bit better than my Tuesday did. 

The French Flag - wave it proudly today!

Oh, and I almost forgot - Happy Bastille Day to my friends in France!  I remember fondly celebrating Bastille Day in my youth in Aspen, Colorado.  Our resident composer that summer was Darius Milhaud, so rather than celebrate Independence Day, the town celebrated Bastille Day.  Later in my life, while working as an archaeologist, we celebrated Bastille Day while working with Cynthia Irwin Williams.  Many happy years with many good friends - many happy memories.  So Happy Bastille Day to all of you!

Cable, Copper and Le Tour

I phoned ComCast yesterday.  One of my customers who has become a good friend over the years works in their customer service department.  She's my "ace in the hole" for me when I need to work with them.  So I phoned her and left her a phone message.  By the time the day was over, I had an appointment scheduled for installation of a different channel box than I had originally been shipped, and all of this will happen after I return from my end of the month workshops, enabling DH to have time to build the new stand that he says he needs to make for all of this to look appropriate in his eyes.  Oy veh!  The things I do for peace in my house - LOL. 

Captain Phil Harris

I have a day to get my charms made, fired and enameled for the PMC Conference.  A day is stretching it a bit - I can't work into the evening on Wednesday because I have to go to "Despicable Me" that evening with Chickie.  I got the image of my sigil done last night and printed out on the photo emulsion film this morning.  I'll make the PPP plate today (either within a half-hour now or as soon as I get to the shop) and I'll start working on the copper tonight while watching "Dangerous Catch".  It's Captain Phil's final episode.  He died earlier this year and was one of my favorite Captains on the show, so I don't want to miss this.  Hopefully I'll have at least one batch of copper ready to fire overnight. 

Stage 9 - Gotta Love the Alps!

And Le Tour de France resumes today in the Alps.  Stage 9 had the hors-cat Col de la Madeleine and that's a real nasty climb of 25km with a 2000 meter summit.  The major steep climbs are at the lower reaches, it mellows out a bit towards the top, but it's still nasty.  My favorites are the Pyrenees and we get to those at the end of the week.  But we have Tuesday and Wednesday in the Alps and mountain stages are always great! 

Decisions, Books and Arts

Well, it was a nice weekend. DH and I played LOTRO (Lord of the Rings Online) for several hours, working on getting a couple of characters up in levels. We ate pasta on Saturday (the usual wonderful pasta from Bascalli's) and the last of the turkey on Sunday. "They" (the ubiquitous "they") say that turkey should be eaten within three days of Thanksgiving or put into the freezer. I prefer to just eat it and end it. I think I'm turkeyed out for several more months and think I'll do ham for Christmas instead. But it was very good, and actually healthy (although the amounts DH and I ate maybe were over the "healthy" mark).

I am looking forward to putting my kiln into my car on Tuesday and bringing it home so that I can get some serious work done on Wednesday while I'm home. I'm trying to think of the best place to place it so that I can work easily and still contain the heat that it normally generates. I don't have a real secure and non-shaky metal item/rack/shelf to place it on that also has good lighting. Normally I would put it onto the chest freezer - I use that space for my electroforming, my dehydrator for my metal clay work, and for my toaster oven for any resin enameling or mass image transferring for my etching work. I know it will handle the weight of the kiln without a problem. I'm just not sure about the heat, and the lighting isn't great right there. But it may be the best choice. I'll contemplate it a bit more today.

And last night I had fun with decisions. I've got my head deep in a book (actually some fan fiction that I am really loving). I had a choice - do I spend the calories for a piece of pumpkin pie that I really don't want, or have a glass of wine that I've been wanting for several days. Wine won out. I'm pleased with the choice and may have some more tonite :-) Have a wonderful Monday - think artistically.