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WE HAVE FIRE! (and it's about time!)

After over a year of sitting on my shelf looking pretty (and being mailed to TN to sit on Trey's shelf to look pretty for a while...), my 'cuda is finally clamped to the table and was lit tonight! I have to say, that foot pedal absolutely ROCKS. I don't think I've ever had so much fun messing with regulator settings.

I got the boro shelved and started working on the Satake. I'm not exactly sure how to get that organized. I have to think about that for a while. So many colors...so little space! I'll have to get some more vinyl fence things and will have them cut to 8" to handle the shorter Satake rods and then get them put in the kiln shelf unit I have set up.

Most of the rest of the studio is getting cleaned up. I put the ceramic molds on the shelving to the back of the studio by the garage door. Cleaned the toolbox today. That was a greasy mess. Let me tell you the story of the toolbox...it starts with an uncle who passed away in 1980.

Uncle Ray decided he was going to remove some external fuel tanks from a pickup because he decided they wouldn't be safe to have on the vehicle in the winter months. Now...in his wisdom, he decides to use an oxy/acetylene cutting torch to cut the chains holding the tank in. Well, you guessed it. He nicked the tank. And yep, it was full of fumes. And *poof*. He lit the tank on fire, the truck on fire, the torch was still running.... It was a disaster. The toolbox was an innocent bystander in the fire and was quite charred and warped. Uncle Ray also torched the truck and seriously warped the ceiling of the shed it was in.

My brothers repainted it years ago, and then decided since only some of the drawers worked, they'd give it to me! (Gee, wasn't that nice of them...??) Turns out, the drawers can be fixed by beating them back into shape, and then we'll put some liquid graphite on the drawer slides and I should be good to go! My little brother tells me that he has some old toolbox locks that we can switch out the existing locks for. Not that I anticipate the need to lock the toolbox, but it's nice to have the option to if I wanted to.

Really, all that's left is cleaning off the benchtop, cutting some ceramic tiles in half to line the very back of the bench, and getting tools put in the toolbox. We have fire. And it's about time!

Today I'm Sneezy....

Seriously, I'm thinking I should have tried harder to find a sweatshirt at DisneyLand with "Sneezy" on it, because that fits me so perfectly about 90% of the time. (The other part is "Grumpy" I'm sure).

The cottonwood trees are snowing their little cotton fluffs EVERYWHERE. And I don't like it one bit! I'm trying to decide which is worse: the real snow that makes me freeze, or the cottonwood snow that makes me sneeze 24/7. I feel like I have dustbunnies up my nose.

I did manage to get my oxygen tank today. I got it unloaded by myself, but no farther than the back alley. It doesn't roll well on wet dirt and rock. Will have to get some assistance with that if the tank fairies haven't already put it in my studio. What are the odds of that happening....?? Yeah, I know....slim to none!

Off to sneeze my way through cutting and labeling some boro and getting a few more boxes unpacked.

Organization

So, I feel like a complete slacker. I haven't posted anything to the blog in so long, I wasn't even sure I would remember how to log in. Go figure.

The organization of the studio is going well. I have TONS of stuff to get put away, and am finding not quite the space I would like. But I'm making the most of what I have, and should have fire by the weekend! (EEP, that just gives me TOMORROW to get myself in gear!) Note to self: get oxygen tank, clean mandrels, put up weather stripping on the garage door. Likely tonight I will get my boro cut and organized. After that, I need to see how much room I have in the shelf for other glass. I don't have enough of the vinyl fence chunks, so the next trip I make to Home Depot I will ask for another 2 sections to be cut into pieces for me. Gotta LOVE that stuff!

I'm quite pleased with my progress so far. And hopefully will be out there melting some glass on Saturday! Woo!