Monthly Archives: July 2012

Jul16

not clown buttons

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not clown buttons

Here are some gigantic buttons I worked on during my last work night. They aren’t intended for clothing. I’ll show you soon what I am doing with them. All of this rolling-pin work is making me want a slab roller though. I need to renew my membership at my local clay guild so I can pop over there and crank out a pile of slabs. I have some other slab ideas I want to start on, too.

Speaking of the KC Clay Guild, I noticed that they are going to have a workshop with Meredith Host in November. I’m pretty excited about attending that. I have gotten out of the habit of going to the monthly workshops at the guild, and I need to remedy that. There are a couple other workshops around town that I would love to attend, but don’t know if I’ll be able to work it out financially or time-wise. At this point in my work, I feel like I need to invest more time than money into this and just get the basics really worked out. I am quite the education-junkie though, and I always have been, so I’m always interested in more classes than I can take. This year, I took an online class taught by Diana Fayt that was truly wonderful, so I’m also tempted by the new Creative Bug offerings.

Education. Junkie. (I suppose there are worse things to be.)

Jul15

clean

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clean

So, I’ve finished my cleanse! I ended up doing 16 days of the full Clean cleanse (but 17 days off alcohol and 18 days off coffee — I tapered off of those early). In order to slowly add back in enough foods to eat dinner at my cousin’s upcoming wedding, I ended the cleanse a little early. You can’t not have wedding cake at a wedding, right?

The first 14 days of the cleanse were not great, I must say. The first week was quite painful, with lots of aching in my legs and lower back. I had such bad chills every night that I was sleeping with a heating pad in the middle of July. I kept finding new rashes (my wrist, my inner arm, my ankle). I tried remedies like Epsom salt baths and magnesium supplements (these two are essentially the same thing), but they didn’t really help. The second week, I just felt really foggy. The only mistake I made was accidentally eating some sweet potatoes, which I guess you are not supposed to have despite one of their lists only banning “white potatoes.” (I guess sweet potatoes create mucus?)

But days 15 and 16 were quite good, and I can see how going the full 21 days would be no problem. My constantly stuffy nose cleared up, my skin cleared up, I didn’t wake up completely exhausted like I usually do (even after a full night’s sleep), I wasn’t bloated anymore, I stopped getting daily headaches and I lost 5 pounds. I felt good enough that the idea of adding foods back in was worrisome. But I want to know which foods agree with me and which ones don’t.

So far, alcohol makes me more prone to headaches (which I knew) and dairy makes me tired, stuffy and bloated (which I suspected). Today is coffee. That’s my first macchiato up there — in my itty-bitty-kiddy handmade mug. I’m trying to switch from lattes to macchiatos in order to reduce the amount of dairy/soy I have. I don’t like almond milk in my coffee. I just finished that coffee, and I’m already feeling the tummy rumbles from that little dab of milk.

I’m also now completely wired — hence the wordiness of this post. Maybe I should have made it a single macchiato.

Jul8

keeping it casual

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keeping it casual

My children spend a great deal of their time in their pajamas. Playing outside? Pajamas. Fourth of July fireworks? Pajamas. Visiting Gram and Grandpa? Pajamas. I’m not sure why I don’t just buy them an entire wardrobe of pajamas.

Anyway, here are the girls inspecting the fairy garden that Gram has started for them. As soon as the temperatures cool off, we want to visit the fairy houses exhibit at Powell Gardens. Gram has a good start with a fairy door, a little couch, some steps, and a river of magic dewdrops.

We had a relaxing evening at Gram’s tonight, and the weather even cooperated with her broken air conditioner. Tomorrow will be busy though. Both older girls had small accidents over the weekend that will require doctor visits: one fell on her face while dancing and knocked a permanent tooth a little loose, and one was accidentally bitten by my mom’s dog, who likes to bite splashing water (but got the foot doing the splashing). So tomorrow will be x-rays and antibiotics. And pajamas.