to celebrate TWENTY (20!!!!) years of wedded bliss and such...

You will recall that me and the wife got together 20 years ago, January 31, and you will also recall we got married on Christmas, NEARLY 20 years ago.  Coming up!
Look what I surprised the wife with, to celebrate.  We like to have something together to celebrate wedding anniversaries (in addition to the avalanch of LOOT that comes with anniversaries...and Christmas...)
I had Stephen, a fine finish carpenter, who painted our house, replace the old door between our living room and studio with...the wife's DREAM:  a French door!
Across the street, Terri Ann and Chris have a little dog that the wife babysat for, and we admired THEIR awesome French door with crystal handle.  When the wife babysat, the reward was an antique crystal door knob....and the project grew from there...
and the wife was surprised indeed!  I had to paint the door and moldings white, so even I had a small and useful part in the operation.  This door will allow both the studio and living room to be a lot more bright...

old door...can you find the beagle in these pictures?


new one....

...

maybe it was just a huge mouse....

Let's describe last night this way, in a haiku:

Midnight and the cat
Thumping and crashing downstairs!
Catching a rat....

Blegh!  So, all this noise downstairs, I run down and Spike has nearly killed Mickey's BIG brother....typical fall, right?  Temps get down to the 30s and those dudes move INSIDE.

Let's wash away those horrible memories with these awesome mama and child sculptures I made....

a spoon

The wife and I were delivering pots and such to Tom's in Binghamton.  Tom has this far out gallery with a little of everything, including some fine art and pots...just WONDERFUL.
We have this routine over in that area, see Tom, go to Danny's.  Danny's is one of those old fashioned diners, for REAL.  Not sentimental or historical, just the same place it has been for decades.  The waitresses are somehow salty but sweet.  Danny himself at the grill has the excellent slicked back hair and tattoos from a stint in the Navy looooong ago...anyway, the wife was looking past my shoulder and tells me
"that couple there is so young, and so in love!" and I agree and say "whoa, sitting on the same side" and she tells me, flushed, "there's nothing like fresh jalapenos all over your food washed down with hot coffee on a warm morning!" (gasp) and I am like "do we need water?" and she is like "I wouldn't have it any other way!" (gasp!!!) and I am like "Danny's is a greasy spoon, except its clean and not greasy, so we should just say its a SPOON"...if that makes sense....

There is a street fair I did down in Binghamton this time last year and me and the wife went over to see it...I never go to street fairs it seems, I am only IN street fairs.  Look at the flowers and butterflies we saw!

the first day and the first 99.9 percent....

If you could hear the rains and wind out there all night....and watch the flying leaves!  Had to put the big quilt on the bed last night:  daytime temps have been nice, but fall is HERE.  Which, although pretty, is terribly sad, because what a gorgeous summer it was and delightfully warm.
As for 99.9 percent...the house is that much painted, but Friday started to get rainy.  Our painter has a little more paint to put here and there, as you see, plus a small job inside the house next week....


In other news, working on new ideas, far right the teapot in this pic...and a robot eating a car....

speaking of robot pots.....

"I am tired of pickets"

Our painter extraordinaire Stephen, who has carpentry and design skills way beyond mere house painting tells me yesterday "I am tired of pickets".  We have a lot of them.  He is painting them grey-blue-green now....but our 2 decks are done!  What an awesome fourth color, it is just this pretty dark bit sort of in the background.  You can see below what he means, ahem, about the pickets and our fence, which I am guessing he finishes today.

I started taking that picture and Penny, well, anyway.....



Favorite colors on these mugs, just outta the kiln!

"no candy stripes this time"

Our excellent house painter, who is actually a contractor with many capabilities AND the former owner of this house and a rehabber was talking with me about the last stage of painting our house.  I am like
"Let's just paint the whole garage the green.  No details please."  The garage is an old barn structure that had been tacked onto the house some years ago.  There is a picture of our house 100 years ago over at our PO and you see the small building that would become the garage in the back yard, a barn at that time.  Anyway, when he painted the house bright purple several years ago, it included, as you will recall, a striped garage.  So, as Stephen put it the other day:
"OK, paint the garage all one color, no candy stripes this time" and he seemed perhaps disappointed that we would go with such a bland and ordinary color scheme....
Stephen moves on to the final color number 4 today, a dark grey-blue-green for the foundation, decks, fence...but the house is basically done :)


I teased you yesterday by letting you see the new house signs in the top of the kiln, cooling.  One is a dog telling you to go around to the side door, which replaces the raggeddy card in the window....


The 540 Main tile was, of course, authentically modeled after.....


You will recall yesterday I was talking about focaccia and trying a pepper-onion focaccia!  OHMYGOODNESS it is so easy and superb....

makin' it fer yerself :)

I open the kiln today and in there is...stuff for us!  To KEEP!  How often does that happen?  There are 2 items in the pictures here, before and after firing, and I will let you guess which is for us and what it is not.  Pictured being used later today, OK?

In other news, it was our first rainy day in months, and I was like "time to try that new minestrone soup recipe with that new focaccia recipe" and OH GOLLY you should make them too! (PS--mmmm, gonna try this focaccia next, yummo!)

getting there....

Stephen got color number 3 around most of the windows and doors Monday, holy CATS the place is looking soooo good, better than we imagined!  We hear that it will rain today, so there may not be any progress.  He has to finish the garage and then do the FOURTH color!  Yes, one more, for the foundation, decks, fence....

You will recall, of course, that our beagle penny spends Monday morning volunteering at a senior center...jumping into laps and kissing faces and wiggling around....Penny is not terribly bright or capable or obedient, BUT SHE IS adorable and wonderfully sweet natured and loooooves people :)
Bottom photos show my old pal Kerry who works there and has beagles of her own and leads us around to visit everybody on Mondays....

the odds and ends of life....

It was, as you saw here on Sunday, a most fabulous weekend at a winery harvest festival.  Check the post below for pics of THAT.
You have a weekend like that and you're pretty tired, but moving right along, its a busy week!  Like, Penny the therapy beagle has her appointment at the senior center this morning...hopefully HUGE progress is made painting the house and other such delights....
sorry I have been so busy, I have NOT been able to keep up with other blogs, but you know I will catch up to you soon :)
Meanwhile, dig these wall pieces I made...

Garrulous Gary...?

Probably the MOST pleasant way to spend a weekend:  can you imagine hanging out at a winery's harvest festival, the REAL thing?  A place with grape vines being harvested and where they are making actual wine for people to drink, in perfect weather?
We live very near Six Mile Creek Winery and they invite me over to display stuff and hang out.  You will recall I was there last year, and this year the wife came along...to taste, to ride the tractor, all the good times....

Garrulous Gary?  I feel so healthy and happy lately I find myself yakking it up with any old stranger...blah blah blah!  This is so unlike me with my shy reputation, but I am going with it, and realizing that, um, well, is the root of Gary "garrulous"? Have I grown into it?

Then you look up garrulous and its more than talkative, and, well, yeah, I can blab about nothing, but being talkative sure as hell sells a lot of pots ;)

"having the habit of talking a lot, especially about things which are not important"



The best way to get ready for a weekend fair is certainly with a puff pancake filled with apples...oh MAN....Spike agrees....

color coordinating the neighborhood

You KNOW the neighbors are gonna come out and talk to you when you paint your purple house spring green (with cream and periwinkle accents).  J. is like "the house is exactly the color of your pottery, its so you!" (true!) A. is like "we were gonna paint OUR HOUSE EXACTLY that color, but I sure am glad I can look across at it!" and L. was like "we were going to paint our house green, you need to bring your colors over so we can coordinate....".  I am like "paint any color you want, who cares????".  But maybe neighbors DO CARE?  I mean, matching houses? Dueling or conflicting colors? All I know is this:  we are painting exactly the colors we want, and we are FIRST....
Stephen has another week to go, but you get the idea pretty clearly now....

Spike watches the painting from inside....
coming along....


view from the street


Spike says "they are painting to match my eyes...just like he has glaze to match my eyes...and covered the couch to match my eyes and...... (maybe this is the best pic of these guys ever, like a Sears portrait!)


I had a blood donation appointment for double reds.  I have always been over 130 pounds, but lately way under.  I weighed myself at the YMCA just before, and even dressed, with shoes, keys, a belly full of lunch, a camera and a book they would NOT let me do the double red donation which requires 130 pounds +.  I guess I have been pretty active in recent months....anyway, they sure did line me up for a regular blood donation though....blegh, don't look at this picture!