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.
 

First Snow of the New Year

Mother Nature didn't wait too long to get us some snow on the ground.  We woke up to about 3 inches on the ground with more coming down through the day.  Not enough yet to break out the snow blower or the cross country skis, but there is hope since it is supposed to keep snowing into tomorrow morning.  Unfortunately our temperatures are supposed to plummet starting tomorrow with a high of 4 degrees predicted for Tuesday.  Not as bad as it has gotten in some parts of the country, but still provides a lot of fun during a run when you eyelids freeze shut every time you blink.

Jo headed to New York bright and early this morning for a regional meeting and in honor of her having to work, I spent the day working on repairing cracks in more of the walls of the house - I think they form at roughly 3/4 of the rate I repair them.  Quite the way for us to spend the first weekend of the new year, but we always did live on the edge.

Goodbye 2014

Note:  I finally figured out a way to insert pictures since the method I've been using for 4 years suddenly doesn't work anymore.  Gotta love technology.

This is my last post for 2014 and it has been quite the year.  Starting with Jo's knee surgery and ending with our trip to Peru it has been a interesting ride.  We had a great, although short, Christmas break.  We went to see the "Imagination Game" which we would highly recommend with great acting, interesting script and it is set during WW 2 (ok that last one is mostly my recommendation).  We also took the opportunity to see the latest exhibit at the Art Museum which was paintings from Scotland focused on Italian artists.  I always find it fascinating to see what paintings become famous - often simply because someone kept it intact all the years since it was painted, not because the artist was a phenomenally good painter.  Before touring the art exhibit we hit a local diner for lunch which happened to have a large cow outside of it - it is true part of the reason we went to it was due to the large cow.  It is worth noting that many Wisconsin eating establishments have large cows outside of them - feel free to infer whatever you would like from that.

We spent the days after Christmas working on a Christmas gift puzzle while watching the, seemingly, never ending bowl games.  Unfortunately our fighting Illini couldn't pull a win out, but they were close.  We also spent a little bit of time going through our clothes to see which ones should no longer be in the rotation for wearing.  As Jo bought me five new pairs of pants for Christmas I took the not so subtle hint and did a little reorganizing of my closet.



In a final note, one of our orchids has bloomed again (seems to happen every 3-4 years for some, as yet, undetermined reason) which seems to be a fitting way to ring out the old year and welcome the new one.

Merry Christmas

All the presents are open, the traditional turkey dinner consumed, and a long walk to discuss all our blessings is completed.  So all that is left is to wish a Merry Christmas to all.  Our best wishes for a phenomenal 2015.