Nothing To Sneeze At

 Since not a lot has been going on around here you all know that you are going to get either bird or chicken pictures!  Ha!  Actually, a fair amount has been going on around here but I don't think ya'll are really that interested in seeing my organized bookshelves, clean bathroom or piles of stuff going to a flea mall, E-bay, the recycling center or Goodwill.  As I mentioned in the last post, I have been feeling somewhat better and my little bit of new energy has been going towards cleaning, purging and organizing.  January is always good for that sort of thing.  And, it's the only thing I know to do when my future is uncertain and I don't know what my next steps are going to be.  By this I mean my job, or what I'm going to do now that I can't do pottery anymore.

I am considering trying my hand at slip-cast pottery because you can better control the growth of mold in slip and drastically reduce your exposure to such things.  I have been playing around with it some but so far I'm not real enthused.  I think I need to make some molds of my own work and then it might be a bit more interesting to me.  Slip cast work can be just as durable/ usable as any stoneware, as long as it's made of stoneware slip and fired correctly.  So, the quality is there.  I mean, after all, all the CorningWare you buy is slip cast.  Heck, even toilets are liquid clay to start with!

 So for now I am selling a bunch of stuff through E-bay and Allen has gotten into the flea mall scene, so I'm sharing a booth with him selling collectibles and some handmade crafts and such.  I've been lugging around boxes and boxes of stuff for 20-something years that belonged to my brother and an aunt and something needs to be done with it.  Fortunately, my brother had excellent, expensive taste and I've made a fair amount off some of that stuff.  In case that sounds kinda harsh, I have kept a few things that were his.  Mainly I just wanted his photos and things of that nature.  None of my other family was interested in keeping his china or such and he had a huge sci-fi collection of books and all sorts of things that didn't really interest anyone either.  So, whadya do? 
It's also a good way to get rid of some of my pottery I consider seconds and make a few bucks.  This particular flea mall we are in has very high traffic and I've been selling a decent amount of old books, tableware and other collectibles I had from my first marriage that I have no interest in anymore.  I always feel better after I clean and get rid of stuff!  Even better if I make a little money!

  I have sold all my show stuff (tent etc.) and sold my big clay slab roller back to the guy I bought it from, so that gave us room to build some shelves in the basement for starting seeds with grow lights and such.  I have never really been satisfied with the veggie starts I buy at the local co-op or whatever and this way we can start the exact types we want here.  Because of my allergies now I am having to eat a little bit of a different diet, one that includes many, many fresh plants and not so much meat, so expanding on my own gardening is about a necessity.  For example, I cannot really eat red tomatoes but I may be able to eat white or green tomatoes.  And yes, there is such a thing as white tomatoes.!  I also need to eat a more diverse selection of greens and herbs and about the only way to do this sort of thing is to grow it yourself.
So, it's all a lot of change- out with the old and in with the new!!  But all you can do is just go with it and try to make it into something interesting and fun.

One other note:  JO, sorry if it looked like I skipped your comment in the reply section and that it took me so long to post it.  For some reason, a very few of ya'lls comments do not show up in my email and I don't know that a comment has been left unless I check either the blog or the blog dashboard, which I forget about and don't do a lot.  Trust me, I really appreciate ALL comments left here and don't mean to ever skip or overlook anyone.