Some friends up in Wisconsin sent me this photo
showing off their beautiful blue bowls.
I hadn’t planned on them as stacking or nesting… but it looks good!

And then I also told them that they would look even better
with ICE CREAM in them!!!

Got my second “shipment” of groovy postcards from THE POSTCARD CLUB!!! Bringing snail mail back to life by sharing the joy of handwritten notes on postcards! If you love sending postcards, check out THE POSTCARD CLUB online or on Instagram. This packet includes photos from really beautiful places I’d rather be right now… a little mini-vacation in my mind! Thanks Emma & Clayton!

Always fun to see people using my pottery in their homes… growing beautiful African violets! In fact, this white African violet comes from the same original plant as the African white violet that has been blooming forever in my dining room. One of my pottery fans gave me an African violet plant he grew from a cutting in one of my flower pots! I got it last Fall… and mine hasn’t stopped blooming since!!! Thank you Rick… for the plant and the photos!

One of the best parts of “kiln firing day” is I can also get a lot of “busy-work” done around the studio. Like spraying these baby building blocks with a layer of clear glaze. If you remember, these were leftover from the end of our Winter session and my Lillstreet Throwdown class. We made them as a surprise gift for Molly & Jacob who are expecting their first child. We finished building them at the end of class, and they were bisqued soon after that. And there they sat on the shelf as the pandemic took hold.

Sure, I was working in the studio. Sure, I could have glazed these any time over the past three and a half months… but of course I kept putting it off. Well, they’re FINALLY glazed… and ready to be fired again! The “Team Lavender Baby” is due in six weeks… so I had plenty of time. Could have easily procrastinated a few more weeks!!!

A wonderful surprise every year… a crazy-cool spiked flower blooming in my front yard garden! It’s called bear’s breeches, sea dock, bearsfoot or oyster plant. It has really cool leaves and this amazing flower stalk. Such a cool addition to my garden… thanks to my gardening friends down in Peoria!

When I got home from the studio at sunset… it turned out to be a perfect evening for a neighborhood stroll with a friend. Even better when that stroll takes you to Lickety Split for a little chocolate-yummy sumthin’-sumthin’… which we’ll just call DINNER!!!

Tempted by the vintage candy…
but resisted, and then made my ice cream a LARGE!!!

Looks like Kristy has been in the kitchen making a healthy & tasty treat of peaches & strawberries topped with basil & balsamic vinegar. Looking good in two of my stamped bowls… but I of course would want some vanilla ice cream to go under all of that healthy stuff!!!

Thanks for the photo Kristy!!!

The coleus plants on my front porch are all growing so well… so I just chopped them all down!!! Okay, so maybe “pruned” them is a better phrase… but here are the cuttings that I’m going to try rooting. My Peoria gardening friends to it all the time… so I figure if I can even get half of them to root I’m doing good!

Sadly, we had tickets to see Cirque du Soleil’s new “ALEGRIA” under Le Grand Chapiteau here in Chicago for last night… we’ve had tickets since last Christmas as they were the perfect gift!!!

They were doing a re-boot of “ALEGRIA” – the very first Cirque du Soleil show I saw here in Chicago. I remember going and being completely mesmerized as soon it started and the singer sang the first notes. My jaw dropped, I was completely enamored and have been the biggest fan ever since! So we were all so excited to see that they were doing a re-imagined version of ALEGRIA … and bringing it to Chicago!!!

Unfortunately, Cirque du Soleil had to cancel the entire tour due to the pandemic. So the 25th Anniversary re-boot of my very first Cirque show will just have to wait. Instead, we watched the original “ALEGRIA” production on YouTube and ate lots of pizza!

Not quite the same as a live show under the Big Top… but we do what we gotta do, right?! Melty cheese & creamy garlic sauce sure helped too!!!

Okay, so now I”m hungry again… looks like Matt has been making some garlic scape pesto again… this time over pasta in one of my bowls with a stamped rim!