I little catch up....Starting with JULY 2010

Ok Ok I know...I have been a TERRIBLE blogger. So here is the year recap...are you ready???

Ok so I left off in July....
So first there is my favorite holiday and anniversary:
The 4th of July!

We went to the Stadium of Fire because I LOVE FIREWORKS...and Carrie Underwood was the singer so that was fun..but I think this is our last year. We will now join the ranks of all the freeloaders who just watch the firework show outside the stadium.

Then there is the 24th of July which is my favorite because I love a good parade...and they never disappoint...here are a few choice floats:

My other favorite part is the great carny food. I love eating random food from traveling carts...it's like an adventure.

We lost our pup.

Our sweet Lab Sadie passed away on Monday. We found out a week ago that she had very advanced cancer. When we heard the news we decided to take her home and try to keep her well enough so she could join us on our annual camping trip to Pine View. She loved to swim so I wanted her last memories to be fun and for her to be able to swim one more time.

She made it through the weekend and then stopped eating. We didn't want to see her continue to deteriorate so we decided we would put her down. We went in to AVC on Monday evening and held her while they put her to sleep.

It was the saddest, hardest thing. I put together a slide show of a bunch of pictures of my sweet girl.

MY TRIP

Sorry, Sorry for the long delay in posting my trip to Nepal.

 I think the photos tell a lot, so I have posted two sections: The first is our 12 hour layover in Hong Kong where we went sight seeing and the second is all NEPAL.

It was a great trip. Very challenging on many levels, but I will defiantly be back again! So all in all...a great experience.

Hong Kong:

And NEPAL:

Hope you enjoyed the pics. Yes I actually did this! I know...it's amazing. I think I'm a new woman :)

My Wares

So I promised a post with my completed pottery....so here are a few things that I finished and  brought home yesterday.

This is a vase I made and we finished it with a firing technique called horsehair...Basically you heat the pots up to 1700 degrees and then you bring them out and lay horsehair on the hot pot and it burns into the surface....It's pretty freaken cool.

This we finished with a crackle glaze...you put the glaze on...heat it to 1700 degrees and then pull it out and blow in it and the glaze starts to crack then you put it in a trashcan filled with newspaper and it lights that on fire and you put the lid on so the smoke will fill the cracks...and voila...you have an awesome crackle effect on your pot.

This is my favorite pot....I made it and hand carved it. To get them jet black you heat them like the first two and then you just pull them out of the fire and into a burning trash can to smoke the clay until it turns black. I love this one...
 

And the BEFORE: Waffle Teapot

And AFTER.

And the BEFORE: Pineapple Picture

And AFTER: With the pineapple tumblers

I have had so much fun in this class. I am taking the advanced class this summer and from then on I am eligible to just pay studio time and I can go in the studio and use all the stuff to make whatever I want....I'm super excited...cause this is my new hobby and I don't plan on stopping....it's the most relaxing thing...I tell ya...with a life as busy as mine...it's nice to take some time and do something so relaxing and rewarding.                     

My Modeling Debut

I'm sure a lot of models get started at 32.....

Sometimes crazy things happen to me...like this last month. I went to a shopping party with my friends Meagan and Kaysee, at Maurices in Valley Fair Mall...they have these splurge parties that you can have after the store closes you and your friends get to have the store to yourselves to shop till your hearts content and you get 15% off your purchase...so it's super fun.
Well I needed to get some casual clothes....well I don't really own many 'casual' things so I basically needed an entire casual wardrobe....so I was trying on a million things and coming out to get every ones yea or nae...and the store workers thought I looked cute in there clothes so they asked if I would be in their fashion show.

Well SURE! So the next week I went to the store and got to pick my "looks" for the show and come Saturday I was strutting my stuff down a 'runway' in the middle of Valley Fair Mall. I'm sure my modeling career will really take off now that I had such a stellar debut. I had John take pictures (along with all the rest of the paparazzi) and at the end I got 20% off whatever I wanted...so of course I bought a few things =)...(John has now banned me from the store).

                    Here is my first 'Look'.

            This one I liked and bought it after the show...
                this is their 'new spring line' outfit.

                   This is the 'night on the town' outfit

                    This is the 'spring dress' outfit...

     Here we all are.....me and the rest of the "talent".....

It was hilarious...the store Vanity was doing the show with Maurices and all their models were like these little 13 year olds and they dressed them in short skirts and hooker heals...you gotta love West Valley.
I know I should have informed all of you that this momentous day was happening so you could all come and see me strut my stuff....but because it was located in the ghetto...I didn't want anyone getting hurt....I was thinking of your safety...cause that's just how sweet I am =o).

Not even a week after my modeling debut I was asked to play a 'subject' in a BBC documentary being filmed at the U...I knew that fashion show was my big break!
I will let you know when the BBC thing comes out...I was all hooked up in an EEG cap with electrodes out of my head...it was quite a good look..I spoke to John about how he felt being married to someone famous and he was ok with it...I just hope the magazines don't try and tear us apart...fame has a price you know.

Well that is the exciting news in my budding modeling and acting career.
You can all say....you knew me when.....

  

I AM GOING TO NEPAL!!  

 So...here is the story....

My Dad started up a non-profit organization called the Nepalese Village Childrens Education Foundation..check it out ( www.nvcef.org). And I have been helping him do powerpoints and what not to help raise money to provide 2 teacher to the school in Deosa. He is going to Nepal to do the final interviews and secure a payment method with the school and also purchase some school supplies for the kids. He mentioned he was going and asked me if I wanted to come....uh...yea...of course I want to come...Next step was figuring out when to go...he originally planned on going the end of June but they informed him that this is during monsoon season so it would be better if he came in April. School is out the 29th of April and doesn't start back up until May 17th so we decided that would be the perfect time to go.

And now here it is 6 weeks away and I'm in a rush getting my passport renewed, figuring our how to pay for this and what in the world do you wear in Nepal?!?  Not to mention the fact that as many of you know I am not a big Hiker....but this trip will require a 6 hour hike to get to the remote village of Deosa...so I have to start exercising to get in shape for this so I don't die along the way.(My dad is going to see if they can get a horse or a mule for me to ride....I'm THAT pathetic) But have no fear! I am determined! I am so excited for this once in a lifetime experience... I can't WAIT! 

So..the items that are needed by the children are books, educational posters for the school walls,new instruments for the glee club and a treadle sewing machine(because they are very remote and do not have electricity). We will be purchasing these items in Kathmandu so they will be in Nepalese and we can help their local economy. If anyone would be willing to donate..even 5 dollars (it goes a LONG way in Nepal) to the foundation we could make sure we can get all of the things they requested. www.nvcef.org Thank you for your help.

I will bring back a million pictures and a lifetime of memories and I will share them all with you when I get back!

My Inner Hippy

I am a type A personality. I like math, structure and logic. I am a planner and a doer. I DON'T flutter through life on a whim and entertain whimsical thinking. I am NOT a hippy!

Or so I thought.......

I am in school and part of every degree are 'general exploration' classes...so I have to take some art classes. I have a creative side but I wouldn't call myself creative. Scrapbooking gives me anxiety. I have tried my hand at painting, floral arrangements, card making, and quilt sewing. I feel I have done an adequate job but I have never cared to pursue any of these as a hobby.

Last semester I decided to take wheel-throw pottery. I thought it would be fun and since it finished up around Christmas my wares would make great gifts.

The class confirmed my suspicion that #1-You need to be a hippy to do well on the wheel and #2- I am not a hippy. My experience was a mixture of stress, sore muscles and even tears. Not once did Patrick Swayze appear to me and guide my hands...very disappointing. What I took home from that class was a box full of 'special' mugs and a 'vase' or two. While the recipients of my gifts(being family)were full of praise...I knew the truth...the work was crap. So you can understand what I am talking about here is a sampling...the first is a 'coffee mug' you will see that it's really more like an espresso shot glass.

I put a regular coffee mug next to it so you can see its small size.

I tried to improve it with a fancy handle....which turned out to be a finger hole.

Here is another larger mug...with a nice uneven edge.

Our last assignment in the class was the straw that broke the camels back....Large Forms....um...have you seen my mugs...they turned out to be shot glasses..how am I supposed to make a beautiful vase??? well...I didn't..I cried with frustration as time after time my clay flew off the wheel....So I settled on a slightly bigger mug and called it a vase.


I brought all my work home and dispersed it amongst family, content with my inabilities because 'I am not a hippy'!

Or am I????


I had another art requirement and while I didn't do well in pottery it was an easy A (or A- for me). So I signed up to take Handbuilding pottery. I felt I might be better at this since the clay would no longer be a moving target. Never in my wildest dreams did I imagine what would happen next.....

Ladies and Gentleman.....I found my inner hippy! I have officially fallen in LOVE with pottery and the best news is...I'm actually GOOD at it. Who knew that the only thing standing in the way of me and clay mastery was that darn WHEEL! Well good riddance to the wheel and hello my new hobby!

Now my 'large forms' are actually LARGE! My vases are actually beautiful vases...
It's a whole new world and I am loving it! I love the freedom of the clay...I never really know what my forms will turn out to be...I just start working and they just appear...I'll get inspired by something and recreate it...or someone will say..'Hey that looks like a pineapple' and I just go with it. It is the most fun and relaxing thing I have ever done.

Here are some of my pieces...

We were making textured forms. I didn't really like how the texture turned out until someone said that it looked like a pineapple....I thought so too so I kept going with it and voila...my pineapple picture...(I made 4 pineapple tumblers to go with it)



Then we went on to teapots...I textured the clay and started building with no end vision in mind and a kid in class said "that reminds me of a waffle, it's making me hungry"....well that was all I needed...I made a waffle lid complete with melting butter and asked my teacher how I could create the look of dripping syrup....




In the studio there are pieces from people at all skill levels and so there are some amazing things to look at. I got inspired by a vase I saw in production. It had a beautiful leaf like detail on it and I wanted to do something like that. I also wanted to have a more girly, beautiful teapot that maybe didn't look like food. So I built another teapot and decorated it with leaves...then for the lid I remembered how I used to make roses out of tissue paper and how you can make a rose out of fondant...so I thought surely I could make one out of clay...so voila...a delicate, girly teapot complete with a rose topped lid. (I made two little teacups to match)





I have informed the talented Mr. Keck that he better MOVE OVER...there is another creative soul in the house now and it wants it's own pottery studio...complete with kiln. I probably have to wait until we finally move into our daybreak house (the one in my dreams) because there is no more room here...but one day...I will have a place to sit and be creative...I can't wait...in the meantime I plan on taking the advanced hand-building courses so I can keep creating. I will keep you all updated on the progress and post some finished projects as soon as we actually finish them. =)...
for now I say...

peace and love man....