The good, the bad and the ugly and...

It's been a while since I blogged, geeze so  much has happened I'm not sure where to begin. I have good and I have bad so I reckon I'll just start with the... bad? Ok so at the end of August we made a emergency road trip to Maryland after being contacted by one of my oldest and dearest friends Allison, that her dad had pancreatic cancer and stomach cancer and was given less than 2 weeks. Her dad Gordon was also my husbands high school teacher and really helped guide Mike into his profession Gordon always claimed that my husband was his favorite student ever and Gordon really meant a lot to him, he was Mike's mentor. Gordon passed away while we where there. My other bad news is my father in law has been diagnosed with Alzheimer's, I can't put into words how I feel, I love my father in law dearly and this just sucks. The other bad, well kinda good, but bad news is my mom had surgery yesterday on her leg, she's been walking around for over a year with a broken leg. Her original doctor put a rod in her leg after she broke it in a car accident, well he made the rod too long and her bone never healed. It's a mess. I tried to call her but haven't heard anything back which worries me, she lives in Florida so it's not like I can just stop by, but I know her husband would call if something was wrong. I'm sure she's probably just doped up and probably hating life right now. I hate waiting. But at least she'll be fixed.

Quick change of subject wanna see my foot? It's gross. Let me tell ya how I did this trick, I was carrying a load of laundry out to the garage, there is one step down into the garage and of course I couldn't see where I was going because I had my arms full of clothes and when I took the step down into the garage BAM! instant pain. I stepped on something but didn't know what, so I held my breath, limped over to the washer and loaded it and came back into the house before I looked at my foot. Well turns out that a plastic cover to something on our lawn mower with screws sticking up out of it was laying in the floor and that's what got me. The screw head was sticking up and when I stepped in it the screw bent and drove the screw head up into the arch of my foot which left me with a 3/4 inch wide gash which was equally as deep and boy did I struggle to hold it together. I irrigated it myself and cleaned it really well, it was pretty intense. In any event, it's healing pretty well, the bruising has finally gone away, the whole arch of my foot was bruised black and blue.
This is shortly after it happened (if you read my blog regularly you know I'm gonna show you my boo-boo's and if you don't read me regularly... guess what? I show my boo-boo's).

Ok so moving right along. 

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Check this out, I can't tell you how much this picture makes me laugh when I look at it.

My Precious

OK So switching gears now that I've grossed you out. Wanna see what I've been working on? I've give you a peek. Here is one of the Berry bowls I finished trimming today.

And I did this bowl today. 

And here is a quickly peek at some boxes and soap dispensers drying out. 

I have projects all over my studio in the drying phase. I've switched what type of clay I use which kind of makes me nervous and I have 4 new glazes that I just mixed so that adds to my worry. Of course most all potters tell you to test before you glaze your pots. I'm one of those people that just says screw it, glaze everything and see what happens.
I also took a try at making Christmas ornaments on the wheel, here are 2 samples of what I ended up with.

Ok So now do you wanna know my really, really BIG news? 

Oh my gosh, I'm so excited I could bust.

In January I will have a new name. 

I'll still be Denise to friends and family 

and Mom to my kids

but in January I'll also be known as

GRANDMA!!!!  

and guess what else? 

It's a BOY!