Summer To-Do List 2008

I love to make lists...my list for this summer includes the following:

1. Make a tile mural for the wall behind the stove.

2. Make a set of squat vases for someones wedding party - using Shino glaze, yum!

3. Make some 3-D fish for multi media display...twisted roots, rocks and the like.

4. Handbuilt ice cream dishes in happy primary colors.

5. A tray with this image I have in my head that involves a Jacob's Ladder with stars, eyes, etc.

6. Some of those heat/cold therapy neck wraps (I will offer them for sale at the Johnston Holiday House in the fall and they are nice little last minute gifts too.)

7. I had it in my head once and now I lost it but I think it involved making a tray using a sort of patchwork style...fish in the patches, various colors with a pitcher and some tumblers too.

Can a person look at one more dragonfly on a piece of pottery? This little guy is such a nice size, maybe some mints or nuts would be good in it.

A List of Things to NOT Do....

I looked at a list of things I was going to do from a few weeks ago. And now I am wondering if I should make a list of things to NOT do. Some of the things on my list I have decided against.

1. Do not make soap dishes, buy wooden ones instead (should the buy part go on a new to do list?)

2. Do not go to any mall-type store unless forced at gunpoint until after January 5th, 2008.

3. Do not turn on Christmas lights until after December 1st, 2007.

4. Do not start new hobbies until you are done with the other 1,000+ projects you have started.

Gee, not to do are harder than to-do I guess...

This handsome man is Nels Uranus Hanson (Hallstenson), he is my Grand Uncle. Born 17 May, 1864, married 1888 in Sheyenne, Eddy County, North Dakota, died 1902 in Two Harbors, Minnesota. He married a woman named Martha Hanson and after he died she remarried a man by the name of Warner. Mr. Richard Warner sent me some information about Nels a few years ago and I will post the history soon.

A Book I Really Want to Read

This is one of my favorite beads, it is called a djore bead, I don't know what that means. Must be Buddhist. The handworked silver is attached to the bead, it is also an old bead. The material is called copal, a resinous substance from someplace near Tibet.

Ok, usually I am pretty happy to get a book like this at the library but I am a self-confessing to-do list junkie. I like to make lists and gleefully cross off the items as I accomplish them. Sometimes I will do something that is not on my list; like buy gas for the car or get the oil changed, something, anything and, if it isn't on my list I will add it and then cross it off. My sister taught me that one. My daughter likes to make lists too I think. I know that my grandson, now 10 years old likes to make them. He said to me one day, "Grandma, remind me to get my homework signed by my mom when we get home". The list junkie in me jumped in and told him, "You should write that down so that you remember". His face lit up as he got out the paper and golf stub pencil. On his paper he wrote: Note to Self.

The odd thing is this; why am I interested in someone elses list? Probably because I am eternally nosy (I like to call it curious in polite company)...