New Pottery Toy

I finally got the bench together ro hold one of our Christmas gifts.  We got a pug mill for our pottery studio so that Jo's wrists won't take so much of a beating when preparing clay.  For those that don't know the story, I purchased this without completely checking all the specifics and while it is perfect for our clay use, it is a wee bit oversized in general - it weighs in at a hefty 140 lbs.  But it is now sitting on the bench it will stay on until we should ever move and we deal with having to move the beast at that point in the future.  It is functionally a small extruder, which I've worked with multiple times in my chemistry past, so I'm thinking that if this clay thing doesn't work out, I might start making some cool thermoplastics in my basement.

For the rest of the week, I completed my yearly attack on cracks in the plaster around the house and I am now enjoying not having to scatter plaster bits and dust everywhere - at least until next winter.  I'm slowly evolving my skills at repairing plaster but haven't as yet figured out how to do it more neatly.  If anything, I'm moving in the other direction of just making whatever mess is necessary and dealing with the clean up later.

The other fun this week is surviving the frigid cold temperatures.  We have had several days where we stayed below 10 degrees and this coupled with high winds has made going outside a real adventure.  But I braved the cold one day to run but the rest of the week have chosen the warmer approach of working out on a bike or elliptical inside.  Supposedly next week we are supposed to get up to the 20's which sounds tropical compared to this week.  The weather has also taken a toll on the heating plant in the house, but that is a tale for next week.