Mother's Day is just another day for me for the most part.  But my sister always tries to make it up to me.  These are the gorgeous flowers she bought me this year:

I will try and get better pics tomorrow.  I love my flowers!  Thank you sis!

So, this Spring, I took Beginner's Ceramics figuring Ceramics, easy breezy.  You pour slip into molds, bake, clean, pain, and glaze...NOT!!!  We hand built with clay the first half and used the wheel the second half.  It is HARD and TIRING.  Anyway, with that said, here are my projects, finished.

The first project we did was to simply take a piece of clay and squeeze it.  Once it dried and had been bisque fired we Raku fired it.  That is where you bring it up to about 2000 degrees for thirty minutes with a special glaze on it and then toss it immediately in a can of paper shreds that catch on fire.   Once they have been in the can for 20 minutes, you removed them and place them in water to cool.  It is actually a cool, if asthma inducing process.  Anyway, here is my first piece, on the right:
The other items, other than one, are my maquettes, or small models.  One is an onion, a pine cone, a flower, an apple and the final item is the leaf to my apple.


We had to make two eggs, one large and one small.  The large one, I used copper oxide on and then glazed it in hunter green.  I really like how it turned out.

Our small egg we Pit Fired, I hate it.  It is just burned.

We also had to make three teapots.  We actually made parts for teapots and then traded parts and built the teapots.  Here are the three I wound up with:
 


Then we learned to make cylinders on the wheel.  Here are mine:













Then we made a thrown and altered object and this is what I came up with:

This was also Raku'd.  I love the way it came out.  Everything on it is thrown including the handle.  Cool huh?

Thanks for indulging me!  Oh yeah. Last but not least, my test tiles.  Where we tested techniques.

Last weekend I got to scrap, or maybe it was the weekend before that.  The 17th anyway.  And here is the one layout I did.

We started three or four years ago having reunions for my Army Reserve Unit.  They have been a success for the most part although this year we had fewer show up than normal.  I think that is because we had the reunion an hour and a half east of Okmulgee.  Next year, we plan on having it at Okmulgee Lake and we will see how that goes.  This year was still a success though and here is a pic of those of us who did show up. 
Front Row, Left to Right:  SFC Celestine, 1SG JD Lenard, 1SG George Guillory, 1SG Armstead, 1SG Dobson.
Back Row, Left to Right:   SFC Price, SFC Gartrell, 1SG Eubanks, 1SG Stevens, SFC Crotts, CPL Levine (That would be me), Lt. Col Page (AKA Maj. Catastrophe), Lt. Col. Wall (AKA Maj. Disaster), CSM Blackford.

Well, I finished up the flower bed last night.  I added a border and mulch and this is the end result.  Took the pic from my perspective and from the side.

Once we got the sidewalk in and it was ready, I could not WAIT to get some flowers in.  We(I) planted an azalea, petunias, Dusty Miller, and Daffies.  Whatcha think?

So, last year, because I was clueless and did not water the foundation, the porch cracked, broke and fell off.  The porch post was dangling so we HAD to fix it.  They have been working on it since last Wednesday and I forgot to take pics as they went.  But it looks awesome!  Ok, so it will look more awesome when the caution tape is gone and the old porch is gone and dirt is redistributed, but hey!  it still looks great!

Here are the pictures:

Well, it has been a while since I posted and a LOT has happened.  I won't go into details, but Jessa is no longer with me in Okmulgee, she is now with her sister in AR.  I am sure she is being taken good care of.

On Wednesday night/Thursday morning I got a phone call at 12:30 a.m.  Joe, my brother Danny's roommate, called to tell me Danny was having another heart attack and that the ambulance was on the way.  Let me preface the rest of this story by saying I would not take my worst enemy to Okmulgee Memorial Hospital if they were on their deathbed.  It is a joke of a hospital and that is really sad to say as it is the ONLY hospital in Okmulgee.  So...if you call an ambulance in Okmulgee, you naturally go to Okmulgee Memorial.  When I heard the ambulance was on its way to pick up Danny, I said a prayer that OMH would suddenly be competent.  Not so much.

I got to the hospital as they were taking Danny out of the ambulance at about 1:05.  At 2:30 a.m., my brother, while having a major heart attack, got up and walked out to my car for me to take him to the NEXT closest, and much better, hospital in Henryetta which is 13 miles away.  He was in my back seat crying and screaming the whole way.  To say that I was scared is putting it mildly.  Okmulgee had only given him anti-anxiety meds and did not even hook him up to an EKG!

I flew to Henryetta with Danny in the back seat and we walked in and I said "heart attack" and they IMMEDIATELY got him to the back, hooked up to an ekg, blood drawn and chopper on its way in FIVE minutes.  Total time Danny was at Henryetta??  Approximately 40 minutes.  In that time, they did his EKG, drew his blood, attempted to get his blood work results from Okmulgee (Okmulgee STILL had not sent them when we left Henryetta) and had him packaged up to be Life Flighted to Hillcrest (Oklahoma Heart Institute) in Tulsa.  What the HELL was up with Okmulgee???  They almost killed Danny because of their incompetence.

By the time I drove back home to tell Dad what was up and to get a couple things to take with me to the hospital in Tulsa and finally got to Tulsa, Danny was in the Cath Lab and Dr. Leimbach was placing another stint.  At about 7:00 a.m., he came out and said that Danny had two 100% occlusions, one of which was growing feeders around it to naturally bypass it.  He placed a stint in the other one.  No clue at that time if Danny would have permanent heart damage or not.

It is now 4 days later, or is it 3? and we were told today that so long as Danny remains sedentary for the next two months (I thought they said weeks, but Danny said they told HIM two MONTHS), he should have NO PERMANENT DAMAGE.  Praise God!  Your prayers worked!  Thank you so very much!

Today I had the pleasure of taking Danny home from the hospital and making sure he got in bed.  He is exhausted, but glad that God spared him.  I am exhausted.  This week has been a long month and this month has been a long year.

Thank you all for your prayers.  You will never know just how much they have meant to me and my siblings.  Bless each and every one of you!

And man, are we excited!  I bought Jessa a sewing machine for her birthday and some fabric and such.  Well, ,we started this quilt almost immediately and have fought with it since then.  First, Jessa got out of control on sewing the edges and we had to cut several inches off.  Then, we had to figure out how to do the corners and FINALLY Lana came over, took one look and said, "darts"  "what you need to do is dart the corners."  SO....Today, I put in the darts (We won't discuss the fact that I had to remove as many times as I put in) and FINALLY Jessa finished the binding.  Well, for the most part Jessa finished the binding.  I had to do the last side because it kept making a birdsnest.  Anyway, this is Gavin's tummy time quilt!  It is Thomas the Train fabric and I hope he enjoys it!

One of these was from the US on the 2nd of February and the rest are from the 9th.  Gavin is camera shy.  He keeps his hands in front of his face no matter what!  the US Tech tries and tries to get him to move his hands and he is having none of it! Jessa tells me that he is going to pop out at birth with his hands in front of his face screaming, "NO PICS, GRANDMA!!!"  ROFLMAO

I have news for him, he is going to have his picture taken!  And withOUT his hands in front of his face.  I am betting he is going to be a thunbsucker though I am just guessing!  Anyway, enjoy!