Oh, Happy Day!

Pots and hot wax at the ready~

But sometimes it's worth listening to the Horror of the Day first:

You are often the one with the game plan, but your ideas may fall flat today. The problem is that you might sound so brilliant that others endorse your solution, even if it isn't the most practical one. Instead of declaring your strategy the winner, show your vulnerability and admit that you really don't know what will work best. If everyone realizes that you don't have all the answers, it will give the group the chance to develop a really good idea together.

The odd news is this is for today, a whole work day ahead of me with flat ideas! Should I go back to bed or head out to declare strategies? Why, I DO declare...

High tailed it to the studio at 8 AM yesterday with a power bar in my bag, and 'woke up' at about 4 to go home. I was in the zone all that time moving from one thing to the next. Geesh, I love it when that happens. When I did finally realize what time had gone by and looked around, I hadn't done one bloody thing I had intended to, but somehow four new pieces had appeared and only need a bit of tweak to finish up. My basic experimentation was with silk gampi paper with which I am now completely smitten. It enabled me to print with the dye inkjet and embed into the wax seamlessly. It's very fragile stuff and I won't be sticking it through the laser printer (read previous studio horror stories), but I am discovering what works and what doesn't. And I'm headed back for another day today with Laurie so I have to go early to get it all cookin'- I'm sure I'll learn lots more from her. And here are my pictures of what's been happening:

The following are experiments with old puzzle pieces. I sorted out the colors and realized the pieces all look like little men (little humanoids?) in costumes so 3 small collages built themselves:

Boston Marathon (running men)

It Ain't Easy (colliding men)

Fire Dancers (dancin' men)

I also bound two of the alphabet quilties (12 to go!) and wound two huge skeins of sparkly slippery rayon yarn into balls, please, can I sit down now?

On the home front, my travelin' son arrived back in Boston after his flight out of Amsterdam. His girlfriend (my GF-in-law) was delayed on her flight out of London (they had made their reservations separately and couldn't fly together) so was stuck there. After traveling and living out of suitcases (read backpacks!) for 5 weeks they were certainly ready to get home and that seemed to be the only glitch- oh, except for picking up some uninvited guests somewhere in Slovenia of the bedbug variety. She finally arrived back home and all their bags and clothes are out on the porch until further notice. Now, we'll see what happens in the continuing saga. I am hoping Real Life will be fun enough for awhile.

I've got my Thanksgiving list all figured out- the hard part this year is keeping it down because there will only be 4 of us. Guess I have to get myself to Whole Foods early tomorrow morning and get a few things going. I made my cranberry orange relish the other day but cut out the sugar on the off chance it would be OK, but it's not. My recipe was the best I have ever eaten, now I realize it was because it was full of crystalized ginger. I tried substituting grated fresh ginger but it's just not good. Oh well. I won't get any more since one of our guests is also diabetic. I may buy a (gaaack) can of cranberries for the other two. I am baking my stuffing inside a pumpkin this year, also have to keep that quantity down. One recipe I found was made with a loaf of olive bread so I may try that instead of my usual cornbread. My very favorite has jalapenos and whole corn and a pound of cheddar but I'll pass on that one this year, save it for a larger crew. The little turkey will go on the grill, and the root vegetables wil be roasted all together. Will have to do some sort of gravy with the vegetable bits. Make do. That's the plan. That and the traditional su boereg to start- LOL. I'll probably get flack for skipping the traditional rice pilaf too. Dessert will be a pumpkin creme brulee so I don't have to make and not eat pie crust. Plus I know creme brulee is our uncle's favorite dessert AND I am now equipped with my studio torch! A no-brainer.

I am going to give up the encaustics for a bit and concentrate o the alphabet book because I suddenly realized I am under tight deadline on that. The enthusiasm isn't there, but it's got to be done. If I give it a week of concentrated effort I bet I can knock it out, let's see.