I realized, after I did that last post about the newly-listed items in my Etsy shop (several of which have already been purchased, thank you very much!), that I have not blogged about pottery I’ve painted for a long time. The last post I could find that had more than a fleeting mention of dottery in it was way back in April! So let me catch you up, if you’re interested.

The little blue ‘be happy’ bowl up there is one that I painted for no particular reason or recipient. I ended up sending it to Leah as an apology for taking so long to send her my half of our flip-flop swap.

I painted this bowl for my friend Laura, with a slightly inaccurate Big Bang Theory quote on it. I don’t have a picture of it fired because Laura picked it up from the pottery shop when it was done.

The things I do for my friends. Kassie was inspired to ask me to paint this for her after reading about the “first: kindness; then: F*** AUTHORITY” mug I painted for Elaine. And because I love her, I did it. I’ll even admit it was kinda fun. But I don’t plan on painting another one. This was a limited edition mug. I don’t have a picture of this one fired either. (You can read Kassie’s hilarious account of watching me paint it here.)

She looks so innocent, doesn’t she? Not like a person who would ever ask a friend to paint a lovely dottery mug with her five favorite curse words on it.

I painted this geek dottery mug as a gift for the lovely Bex. It has two Firefly/Serenity quotes on it: “a little whimsical in the brainpan,” said by Mal in reference to the mentally-unstable River Tam; and, “Also, I can kill you with my brain,” a line said by a very calm River to a very spooked Jayne. The moral here is, never assume that just because someone’s whimsical that she is not also deadly when the situation calls for it.

I had a lot of fun painting this mug, particularly the little whimsical bits.

These annoying smudges are not fun, however. I took photos of this mug with my phone before it was fired, so I know these smudges weren’t there when I finished painting it. That means someone at the pottery studio wasn’t handling my pieces carefully. I’ve had this happen to at least three or four pieces I’ve painted at that studio. Rather disappointing because it’s only 10 minutes from my house.

Brenda had asked me to paint her a round dottery mug a while back, when her cool blue coral mug broke and she missed having a round mug. When I was in California and Brenda had the summer fiesta in our honor, she said that she needed to remember how much fun it is for her when she throws parties. So I painted her this mug as a reminder to be festive.

A little ‘be happy’ dottery vase I painted for Madge, at her request.

This cunning mug was a custom order for my Etsy shop, a dotty mug with Jayne Cobb’s hat on the front and a Firefly quote on the back. I was a bit nervous about painting the hat, but I think it turned out pretty well.

“Dear Diary, Today I was pompous and my sister was crazy…it was the best day ever.”

Shiny.

Annalie painted this Azurill plate the same day that I painted Katie’s NO WHINING sign. She pored over her Pokemon book, and picked the cutest one she thought she could paint. This was almost a disaster because she accidentally spilled a big blotch of black paint on the right ear and was very upset. I convinced her to leave the plate overnight and let it dry, and we’d come back the next day to fix it. We scraped the mistake off, and fixed the blue and pink, and now you can’t even tell the black blotch was there.

Remember those ‘internet friends FTW!’ mugs that Rainbow and I painted while I was in Omaha? Bad news.

It got broken during shipping. I was fairly bummed about this. I really liked those colors, and now Rainbow’s mug will be lonely.

I couldn’t even superglue it together and use it to hold pens, because there was a big ol’ U-shaped crack all across one side. Of all the mugs and bowls and things I’ve shipped, this is the first one I’m aware of that has broken. So it’s possible there was some flaw in the bisque that made it more prone to breaking.

At least I still have the memories. And an excuse to drag Rainbow to paint pottery with me again next time I’m in Omaha.

I actually got to paint pottery twice when we were in Omaha. The second time, I went with my mom, my girls, and Aurora. We did a handprint plate for my my mom with all three of her granddaughters’ handprints on it.

My mom wasn’t planning for Aurora to paint anything, but when she saw Annalie gathering paint and brushes, she said, “I paint? I paint too?” I helped her pick a plate and paint colors, and she painted the heck out of that plate.

Elliora didn’t paint. She hung out in the stroller, played with my mom’s keys.

She had her first lollipop, which she kept rubbing on her hair, then putting back in her mouth with an “Mmmmm!” Crazy baby.

Annalie fingerpainted this butter dish for my parents. I wrote the word ‘Butter’ on it just in case they couldn’t remember what they were supposed to use it for. (This is a photo of it unfired; my mom didn’t get to pick it up till after we left.)

Annalie also painted this plate for me, using my favorite colors. Isn’t she sweet?

Elliora did paint this plate, sort of. I helped her put handprints all over it one day when we were at our favorite pottery studio in Maryland. I think it turned out kinda cute, no?

I think it’s pretty clear that I do what I love, or this post wouldn’t have been nearly this long.

October 20: “Pardon me, Mom. I need to take this important call on my markerphone.” This was the beginning of Elliora pretending that many things—hairbrushes, barbies, remote controls, dollhouse furniture—are phones.

October 21: My business cards came from the Buy More!?

October 22: We drove down to North Carolina for our nephew Leo’s 6th birthday party! Annalie had fun playing games in the arcade and loved playing miniature golf for the first time.

Dana took this shot of our family. It’s not perfect—Elliora was overdue for a nap and resisting sleep and quite cranky—but I like it anyway.

Annalie and Leo had a blast playing on the trampoline, as usual.

They also spent some time playing in Leo’s room, making food for all of Leo’s many animals. I love how well they get along. Elliora spent a lot of time blowing her own mind, putting things into and taking things out of a toy hamster ball.

October 24: Hot dog sandwiches and roasted asparagus for lunch. That’s how we roll.

Since Elliora recently started sleeping in her own room, we decided it was time to make it a bit prettier and more functional. I am the rare mom who has never gone crazy designing a nursery when she was pregnant. I think I used to care about stuff like that, but being in the Navy for 16 years, living mostly in rentals, and moving every couple years has made me a lot more indifferent to that kind of thing. Elliora’s room was thrown together with stuff we already owned (dresser, changing table, bookcase) and stuff we bought in a couple of quick trips to IKEA (crib, curtains, rug).

The blue quilt up on the wall is mainly for noise reduction. No one made it for us; my mom bought it somewhere ages ago because it was blue (Annalie’s favorite color) and had stars on it (I like stars). The rocking chair belonged to Troy’s Grandpa Gronberg, who passed away shortly before we got married. Troy’s sister Dana had this chair at her house, but it was in storage, not being used. So she let us borrow it to use in Elliora’s room for a while.

I was feeding Elliora her dinner when she grabbed the fork out of my hand and fed herself. By the end of the meal she was quite good at getting the right end of the fork into her mouth. Now she tends to get a little annoyed if I won’t let her have the fork and feed herself.

October 25: I had to fudge the Elliora-and-Katy photos for 11 months, since we were going to be in Omaha by the time she turned 11 months old and I didn’t want to skip another month.

October 26: While we were in Omaha, the girls and I all shared one small bedroom. It had its disadvantages, but one advantage was that seeing Annalie and Elliora sleeping next to each other every night was adorable.

October 27: Annalie asked for, ate a couple bites of, and then decided she didn’t want a ham roll-up (deli ham rolled up in a tortilla). She handed it to my mom, who was holding Elliora and chatting with me. Elliora grabbed the roll-up when my mom wasn’t paying attention and went to town on it.

October 28: Demonstrating for my mom and brother how the Ergo can be comfortably used to carry toddlers. Aurora thought it was pretty fun.

The geekiness is strong in my family.

Girlies dressed in their Halloween best; Annalie posing with my cousin Ted, who is also my parents’ contractor.

My new favorite photo of Aurora; that’s a whole lotta orange.

WHAT.

Self-portrait with Annalie.

October 29: This was a full day. First, I met Kassie, Rainbow and Katrina to paint pottery. Rainbow wasn’t so sure about painting pottery at first, but she surprised herself by having a lot of fun. I mean, she expected to have fun talking and laughing but I don’t think she expected to enjoy the painting part as much as she did.

It probably helped that she had an idea for what to paint before she even got there. We were talking about how cool it was that we’d reconnected and become friends via the internet, when we were only friendly acquaintances in high school and college. Rainbow suggested we needed matching necklaces, and I said, “How about mugs?” Internet friends, FTW!

After painting, we said good-bye to Rainbow and walked a couple doors down the sidewalk to B&G Tasty Foods. My doctor’s office when I was growing up was in the same strip mall as this diner. I had not been there for at least 25 years. The decor has been updated in a really great way! The food’s still the same (their specialty is the interestingly-named loose meat sandwich) and is, as advertised, quite tasty.

But even if the food hadn’t lived up to the name, I wouldn’t have minded because I got to eat with two of my favorite people.

After Elliora’s afternoon nap, we headed over to Katrina’s house for more fun. Kassie and Joe were there too, and our friends Jeff and Alma and their daughter Isa.

Elliora is apparently the best toy ever. The boys dragged and pushed Elliora around the house for a while on a plastic lid, which she loved.

As far as Annalie was concerned, though, the boys’ pet rats Ginger (above) and Steve were the best thing ever. She was rather sad to hear that we probably won’t ever get any kind of pet rodent as long as we have cats.

And I’m stopping here. I think Halloween weekend is gonna need its own post.

More photos of October and our trip to Omaha are in my Flickr.

P.S. Like the spiffy new banner in honor of Elliora’s 1st birthday at the end of this month? Thanks, Brenda!

I’m drawing ever closer to 10,000 comments (real ones, not counting spam) on this blog, and the 10,000th commenter is going to win a prize—maybe a piece of pottery of their choice, or perhaps something crocheted, or maybe something else entirely—just as a “thank you” for all for the great comments over the past four years. YOU could be lucky #10,000!

This time of year in Omaha is so pretty!

Yesterday we went trick-or-treating in the Old Market with friends. Annalie and Elliora are both peacock princesses this year. Let’s just leave the fact that peacocks are male out of it, mmkay? Because look! Cutie-pie peacock princesses!

This morning before Ben took Aurora over to her mom’s house, I put her hair up in two ponytails, which she thought was pretty neat.

I like this shot because you can see Annalie’s blue nails and Elliora’s patience with her bossy big sister.

I look like I’m modestly covering my chest, but really I’m just resting my hand on the back of the bench in a weird position. It just looks like I’m a maiden aunt unaccustomed to showing so much décolletage.

Happy Halloween, all!

P.S. I’m not far away from 10,000 comments (real ones, not counting spam) on this blog! I think the 10,000th commenter is going to win a piece of pottery of their choice, or maybe something crocheted, just to thank you all for the great comments over the past four years. So keep those comments coming, YOU could be lucky #10,000!

It’s been at least a month now since I’ve managed to blog about anything in a timely manner, and I hate it. It hate how many photos I’ve taken and posts I’ve written in my head that will probably never be published here, because eventually it gets to the point where we just have to move on. I hate it because they’re stories I wanted to tell, and because I’ll probably forget most of them if I don’t write them down.

I kind of hate that I’m writing this post about it, too. It’s so eye-rollingly meta and just plain boring when people blog about how they never have time to blog anymore. Yet here I am, doing that very thing. Arrggh.

I know I have good reasons for being a bad blogger right now. I know I have other things to do. I’m taking care of my family, first of all. I cook meals, I do laundry, I read stories and drive to gymnastics class and feed the cats. I have a baby who eats three meals a day now, which takes up a surprisingly large chunk of time each day. I’ve been busy traveling and entertaining out-of-town guests, which was super fun but frankly exhausting; I’m sure the guests would agree.

I have two baby blankets in progress and am planning to crochet two more before the summer’s over. I’ve painted a half-dozen custom-order mugs recently and have more to paint when I get the chance. I’m frittering away the usual amount of time reading blogs and watching TV, plus additional hours catching up on Fringe. And that’s only the very tippiest-top of the iceberg. Like everyone else I know—except maybe Diane Court—I’m monumentally busy.

But still. I miss blogging.

May has been a busy month. The mosaic above is only a small sample of what we were doing between the 2nd and 11th. That doesn’t even cover the time we spent at my sister- and brother-in-law’s farm with Troy’s mom and stepdad, or having dinner with Jenn and her boys, or Annalie’s zoo birthday party or painting pottery or toasting marshmallows with Katrina & her family and Joe & Kassie.

Or the fact that Sonja and Noah are here now for a two-week visit!

I have tons I want to tell you about. I have photos that I need to edit and Flickr, and blog posts I want to write. I am kind of resigned about the fact that mostly I won’t get to write them, though. I’ll be too busy feeding the baby and teaching Annalie and doing laundry and entertaining our guests and meeting up with friends and taking a quick trip to New York to meet Sarah and Suzy. I’ll do my best though, because I want to be able to read those posts in a year or two and remember this jam-packed, crazy fun month.

How’s your May going so far?

Elliora has been talking in this weird guttural voice lately. It’s pretty funny. My mom took this video of her, with my brother in the background growling back at her.

On Monday, we went to Village Inn so Annalie could have chocolate-chip pancakes for her birthday breakfast, with extra whipped cream. And bacon.

I fed Elliora some mushy bits of potato from my hash browns, and with every bite she actually giggled. I think the girl likes potatoes. (Then again, she’s liked everything we’ve fed her so far, including applesauce, mashed bananas, pear sauce, oatmeal with cinnamon, sweet potato, potato, carrots, beans, avocado, ground beef, watermelon, and a taste of my garlic bread when she grabbed it out of my hand and gnawed on it.)

We hung out at home for a while that afternoon, watching Elliora make faces.

That evening we had a family (and almost-family; Annalie asked if Rachel and Jeff could come too and since she was the birthday girl we granted her request) party at WheatFields. Believe it or not, that was entirely Annalie’s idea. She wanted to go to WheatFields and have fondue for her birthday dinner. And not the weenie kids’ fondue that comes with toast and mini-corndogs and fries and a little dish of cheeze-like sauce, no sirree. She wanted the real fondue that comes with melted gruyere and a candle to keep it warm and ciabatta cubes and an assortment of vegetables. We were happy to grant her wish.

And Grandma Carol and Grandpa Tom were there! Troy’s mom and stepdad were originally planning a trip to Nebraska later in the summer, but they switched their plans so they could be here the same time as us and meet Elliora and celebrate Annalie’s birthday with her. Wasn’t that awesome of them? We were all very glad they were able to be there.

It was a really fun party—lots of talking, laughing, and eating with a bunch of fun people. Come to think of it, those are the basics of any good party, whether you’re 7 or 17 or 77.

Annalie took a bunch of pictures with my camera at one point. Here they are:

She’s getting really good! I especially love the shot of Troy and Elliora, and the self-portrait. I think we’re going to give her my pink Sony Cyber-shot pretty soon, but at the rate she’s going we’re going to be buying her a DSLR for her 8th birthday.

WheatFields conveniently is a bakery as well as a restaurant, so when it came time for dessert Annalie and I walked up to the front and she picked out the cake she wanted (Karen’s Ooh La La Cake, chocolate cake filled with chocolate mousse and whipped cream, topped with chocolate ganache) from the glass case. I had forgotten to bring the sparkly green ’7′ candle, so I asked our server if they had candles we could use, and she assured me she’d take care of it. I love WheatFields so much. (If we ever do move back to Omaha, it will be no small factor that WheatFields is here. It happens to be right next door to another major factor now in Omaha’s favor, Trader Joe’s.)

We sang, Annalie blew out her candles, we ate cake. Then Annalie, my mom, Troy, Elliora and I stopped at Red Mango for some frozen yogurt at Annalie’s request. My mom took the requisite birthday family portrait on a bench outside. And we went home. It was a good day.

Annalie, how did you go from that to this in seven short—exhilarating, hilarious, frustrating, enlightening, amazing—years!? Happy birthday, sweet girl!

This isn’t the prettiest dish in the world, but when I was making it late one evening it apparently smelled so delicious it woke my brother up. He wandered out from his bedroom rubbing his eyes, to ask what we were making. Of course he got to eat some. You wake up from a dead sleep to tell me my cooking smells good, you get to eat.

Pasta with Asparagus, Mushrooms and Goat Cheese
Serves 2-3

Notes: I made this with what we had on hand and needed to use up. If you have other vegetables you need to use (peppers, broccoli, green beans) you could probably substitute those. But it was pretty darn tasty with asparagus and mushrooms. Just sayin’.

• 4-5 ounces penne (or other medium bite-size pasta, like rotini or farfalle)
• olive oil or butter
• 2-3 cloves garlic, minced
• 3-4 green onions, thinly sliced, white and light green parts only
• 8 ounces sliced baby bella mushrooms
• handful of asparagus stalks, tough ends discarded and cut into 1-inch pieces
• 3-4 ounces goat cheese, crumbled
• salt & pepper
• balsamic vinegar

Cook the pasta according to the directions on the package, except set the timer for the recommended time minus one minute, because at that point you’re going to add the sauteed asparagus to the pot with the pasta.

While the pasta is cooking, place a skillet over medium heat and add a tablespoon or so of olive oil or butter. Once it’s hot, add the garlic and onion and saute for a minute. Add the asparagus and cook for 2-3 minutes, till bright green. Remove from the pan (it’s okay if you remove some of the garlic and onion with it, but you’re not trying to remove it all) and set aside for now.

Add a bit more oil or butter to the pan if necessary. Add the mushrooms and cook for 2-3 minutes.

When the timer goes off on the pasta, add the asparagus to the pasta and stir a bit, then cook for one more minute.

Drain the pasta & asparagus, then return it to the pot. Add the mushrooms, onion and garlic, scraping all the yummy butter or olive oil in there too. Add the goat cheese and mix well to partially melt the goat cheese. Season to taste with salt and pepper. I highly recommend drizzling a bit of balsamic vinegar over each dish before serving.